


Time Loops

by Elvishdork



Category: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Dreamsharing, F/M, Game Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, MC with She/Her Pronouns, Magic, Mutual Pining, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reverse Harem, Sharing a Bed, Time Travel, Timeline Manipulation, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:09:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 54,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26723428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvishdork/pseuds/Elvishdork
Summary: Weeks after letting Belphegor out of the attic and the chaos that followed, things have finally returned to a sense of normal in the House of Lamentation.  With no more mystery or family drama to solve, the human exchange student finally has the time to just focus on the rest of the exchange program.  However nothing ever stays quiet for long in the Devildom as an opportunistic demon attacks her and Luke on their way home from RAD.The attack reveals something about Barbatos’ magic that doesn’t feel right.  She can’t shake the feeling that she altered the timeline and now it's coming back to get her.  Maybe some people aren’t meant to live past a certain point in time.  What Barbatos actually forgot to explain is that the tricky thing about time is that it always wants to correct itself.
Relationships: Asmodeus (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character, Beezlebub (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character, Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character, Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character, Lucifer (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character, Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character, Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Main Character
Comments: 233
Kudos: 401





	1. Chapter 1

She’s running as fast as her legs will carry her. Ignoring the pain in her chest as her lungs overwork themselves, she doesn’t slow down. She knows she’s still being chased. And Luke is in her arms bleeding gold all over her; sticky, gold ichor stains mingling with her own growing red stains on her uniform.

Fluffy white down from Luke’s tiny wings litter the street behind her as she runs. 

She feels something grasp her ankle. Feels it jerk her back mid stride and suddenly she is falling to the ground. Protectively she twists her shoulder to shield Luke from the fall, to protect him from being squished between herself and the pavement. 

There is a loud _crack_ and a sharp pain that has a cry slipping past her lips. It’s a deeper pain than the claw marks that had ripped into her shoulder in the previous attack. It radiates from the point of impact down her arm. 

At least she has enough clarity in the seconds after the fall to see that she has kept her protective hold on Luke. Seeing this, she glances at her feet and sees the shadow that has snaked its way around her ankle.

It is semi-transparent and in the shape of an elongated hand. It’s proportions are all wrong. Slender, pointy fingers grip her ankle like a vice. For something somewhat transparent, it’s hold is very solid and real. Those long shadowy nails dig into her skin in their tight grip.

She tries to kick away with her free leg, but it’s futile. The shadowy limb only jerks her closer, scraping her exposed skin on the ground. Still she keeps ahold of Luke, they’ll have to pry him from her cold dead hands. 

More likely than not at this rate. 

But she would protect him until her final moment as he had tried to do for her. Walking across campus from Purgatory Hall after some late night studying shouldn’t have been an issue. Especially with Luke as her escort. 

Nothing ever seems to go the way it’s supposed to with her though.

There is a dark laugh that has her struggling to escape even harder than before. The same large, scaled demon that had attacked earlier is back. It’s form is hulking, towering over her. It’s long maw of teeth showed as a wicked gleam shone in their red reptilian eyes.

At their side she could see the owner of the shadowy hand: a humanoid figure made of the same semi-transparent shadowy substance. Similar to his hand, his limbs were too disproportionate to be mistaken for human. He stared back with glowing white eyes.

“Did you trip, little lamb?” the one with the teeth said as they looked down upon her. In her panic she hadn’t heard them catch up. She was trying to scoot away with her free leg, but the shadowy one kept her firmly in place. 

The scaled one lifted their leg over her. “Well, it just makes this easier than chasing you across campus.” Their smile is vicious. 

It’s the last thing she sees as their foot comes down over her face and knocks her out.

* * *

When she wakes there is a dull pain rattling in her skull. She blinks a few times before the room comes into focus. It is unfamiliar and dark, her eyes darting around frantically trying to adjust and take it in. 

Her hands and feet are handcuffed to the chair she’s sitting in. They’re painfully tight. 

A grumbling next to her has her turning her head towards it as panic and relief wash over her. It’s Luke, and he's starting to come around too. He’s still covered in his own blood from where that demon’s claws had raked across his chest just as it had with her shoulder. But he’s not dead. 

‘Yet,’ the darker part of her mind supplies. She tries to push the thought aside. The calm survive, the panicked die. If there’s any chance to get out of this, she needs to be calm. 

“Luke,” she says, voice hushed and hoarse. She calls out to him again as he stirs, “Luke!” She breathes a sigh of relief as his eyes begin to focus as he comes to consciousness. 

“Where?” Luke asks, his head lolling to the side slightly as he wakes. 

Keeping her voice low she replies, “I don’t know.” 

He looks around for a moment before his eyes come back to her and widen. “Are you okay?” Luke asks, voice raising in panic. Probably looking at whatever the demon had done to her face when he knocked her out. She can’t worry about it now. His hands begin to test the restraints keeping him tied to his own chair. 

“I’m fine,” she replies, voice barely above a whisper. “Keep your voice down, I don’t think they know we’re awake yet.” 

A dark, rumbling laugh that fills the room tells her otherwise. Red eyes appear in the darkness first before the demon steps into the lowly illuminated room. 

“You don’t scare me, demon,” Luke snaps, voice brave. “I’ll have you know that I serve directly -“ 

The demon backhands Luke, toppling the chair over sideways with the force of the hit. 

“Luke!” his name shouts from her lips as she can only watch in horror. The demon turns and eyes her closely. Their clawed hand comes under her chin as they force her to look at them. 

With their toothy maw inches from her face they speak; and their breath is putrid. “I’ll admit curiosity at the human who forged pacts with six of the seven lords of the Devildom,” the demon says. They force her head to turn side to side, but her eyes never leave their red ones. “How the mighty fall. To be sworn to something as insignificant and weak as you.” 

She swallows her fear. “I wouldn’t want a pact with someone as ugly as you either.” 

The demon lets out a dark chuckle. “Mouthy too. You aren’t doing yourself any favors, human,” they sneer. Their claws trace down her neck: nicking the skin as they travel downward before coming to rest at her collarbone. At the point where Mammon’s golden sigil sits in her skin. Their claws begin to dig in, breaking the skin ever so slightly there and she winces in pain. 

Chuckling the scaled demon says, “Oh it has been so long since I feasted on both an angel and a human. What a delicacy you both shall be.” 

“Do you think Lord Diavolo will just let you get away with this? He’ll destroy you,” she says, stalling for time. ‘Keep them talking. Buy time’, she thinks; trying to figure out what to do next.

The demon laughs at her. “Don’t you realize I’m sending a message? This will ruin his reputation and his stupid little program. Just imagine what everyone will say when they find your half eaten corpses hanging from his podium in the student council chamber.”

“They’ll kill you when they find out,” she replies trying to keep the fear out of her voice. “So ruining his reputation won’t mean much to you in the long run.” 

‘There were two of them,’ she thinks. ‘Where’s the shadowy one?’ 

The demon laughs, lifting her and the chair by the front of her uniform jacket as though she weighs nothing. Her stomach plummets.

“Oh but you’re missing the big picture little lamb,” the demon says with something akin to glee. “The death of a human may be insignificant on the grander scale. But the death of an angel, even one as weak and lowly as this one, now that will mean war. And war means that we will go back to what we’re supposed to be instead of the weak louts his school has turned us into.” 

Looking down, her eyes widen in fear as she sees their other hand poised and ready to strike. The moment hands in the air. Glancing over the demon’s shoulder she sees a pair of white eyes stare at her. She blinks and they’re gone, her gaze returning to the demon’s clawed hand. There is a moment of anticipation as she watches the muscles in their arm move in preparation of movement.

The blow never comes. Suddenly the room fills with radiant light; and she has to close her eyes at the sudden brightness. “Stop,” Luke shouts, glowing like a beacon. Ever the escape artist, he found a way out of the cuffs. But, when she manages to open her eyes against the light, even she can see that he’s on shaky legs; more than likely from the bloodloss.

It happens faster than she can process. The dim light in the room extinguishes and the only light left is that which radiates from Luke. 

It’s so bright she has to close her eyes. There’s the sensation of falling. A cry escapes her lips as she feels the chair hit the ground and topple backwards with her still in it. She hears the wood of the chair snap on impact and she tries to move all of her limbs. The two on her left are still restrained, but her right ones move freely. Though still cuffed to the broken wood. It's movement - however limited - that she’ll take as she scrambles to move.

Opening her eyes again in the brightness of the room, she sees - in some kind of invisible struggle - Luke brings one of his hands behind him as the scaled demon tries to grab him, but their hand burns on contact.

Luke starts to shout in pain as his other hand jerks backwards away from the scaled demon too. Even as it is the demon whose hand smokes from the radiant energy, it doesn’t impede them for long as with a whip of their tail they send Luke crashing into the wall. His light flickers out as he slumps to the ground. 

The original dim light of the room returns and she can see the pair of white eyes glowing where Luke was just standing. 

She screams his name again at the sight of him not moving on the ground. But as he tries to pick his head up, the scaled demon puts their foot on the back of his head and begins to grind their heel. “Rather troublesome for a cherub,” the demon snarls. “I guess that means I’ll have to kill you first.” 

Without thinking she throws a piece of broken chair at the back of the demon’s head. It connects with an audible _‘clunk’_. The demon whips around to look at her and snarls. 

“Pathetic.” They remove their foot from Luke, which was her goal. But the small victory is fleeting as their attention is focused on her.

The demon picks her up by the hair. She winces, her one free hand going to the hand gripping her and futility trying to pull it loose. They lift until her feet no longer touch the ground. The weight of her body and the remnants of the chair puts stress on her neck and she looks down into those red eyes.

“It seems the human has volunteered to die first then,” they say with a razor sharp grin as they look up at her. 

A surge of panic and anger washes over her. It’s enough for what she’s about to do. She’ll be okay with it if it’s the last thing she ever does too. One final act of defiance.

She spits into their eyes. They make a disgusted sound, flinging her to the ground as they wipe at their eyes. The impact of the ground and falling atop the broken chair shocks her for a few precious seconds. 

“Oh you’ll regret that,” they growl. They kick the chair to the side, breaking the leg her own leg is tied to off. With her back suddenly on flat ground, but with her other arm still tied to the chair, their clawed foot comes down onto her chest. Her free hand comes up and presses desperately at their leg, trying to push away. Panic and fear will only kill her faster, she knows, but she can’t control the pounding of her heart as her ribs begin to creak and something in her chest gives an audible _‘pop’_.

This isn't happening fast. They’re taking their time. They're playing with their food, she realizes.

She needs to think. She needs air.

Somewhere between a cough and a gasp, she cries out in pain as the pressure increases on her chest and something else in her sternum gives with a _'crack'_. The remains of the chair still attached to her dig into her skin on their splintered ends. She can feel the claws breaking skin under her uniform as the pressure continues to slowly press into her.

Opening her eyes again she looks up ahead of her. She expects to only see her attacker's red eyes, but on the ceiling above are the same white eyes. All they do is watch and she cannot shake the feeling that something else is wrong. Seriously wrong.

If only she could think.

 _“Listen,”_ the echo of Mammon’s voice from months ago comes to the foreground of her thoughts, pushing back the panic. _“The next time your life’s in danger, I’m gonna be the one to save you, all right? Don’t you forget that. And if I can’t manage to save ya, then make sure you die, got it?! I don’t want no one else steppin’ in and savin’ you, all right. It’s me or no one, understand?”_

She may just end up obeying him. Even in pain, she thinks of the rush of Solomon’s magic that night during the retreat at Diavolo’s castle during her second month in the Devildom. The feeling of it as she had summoned Asmodeous to her side in the labyrinth. 

She tries to recall that feeling now. Wracking her memory, even as she is beginning to starve for air.

" _ **Hear me, denizens of darkness, you who are born of shadow and you who give birth to it. Hear me and do as I command!**_ " The words pass her lips in a strangled kind of sound. Her lungs are desperate for air - for expansion around her words - but she fights it. " _ **I call upon you to send one of your number!**_ "

The demon’s eyes widen. “Stop that,” they snap as their clawed toes dig deeper with more force, breaking deeper into her skin under her uniform. 

Resisting the urge to waste precious oxygen on crying out in pain again, she instead says: “ _ **I summon the Avatar of Greed, Mammon!**_ ” 

There is a horrible moment’s pause. Then the demon starts to laugh.

“Did something as worthless as you actually think -” the demon does not get a chance to finish as they are thrown into the wall. 

She gasps in pain at the release of pressure on her chest. 

“Oi, human, are you okay?” Mammon shouts to her as he holds her attacker against the wall. Her reply is a stuttering cough, as her lungs greedily try to suck down more air. Everything hurts and she can’t seem to form words as she chokes on air. 

Looking back at the ceiling, the eyes are gone.

There is a terrible crackling of power that takes hold of the air in the room. It sends the hair on her arms and neck on end. The air tastes metallic and begins to feel heavy, oppressive and dangerous. 

She hears Mammon shout something in his true speech, his words shaking the air around them. She rolls onto her side, doing her best to ignore the pain as she begins to crawl her way over to where Luke is still laying face down on the ground. It’s an effort as she has to drag the rest of the chair with her. 

She focuses on Luke as she hears her attacker scream. She ignores the snapping of something that sounds like a limb. She does not look. She knows enough not to. She keeps her sight focused on Luke as Mammon, her savior and guardian demon, tears into the demon behind her.

Even more of an effort once she reaches Luke’s side is to sit up near the wall and turn him over. He’s bleeding from the side of his head where the demon’s tail struck him. His cheek is scraped from where it was grinded into the ground. He’s still bleeding gold ichor, and she delicately holds him with his head in her lap. One hand pushing sticky, bloodied hair out of his face. 

It’s all she can do as she ignores the other demon’s demise nearby.

* * *

Eventually a hand on her shoulder - the one not scraped raw by claws - snaps her out of her daze. It’s Mammon, kneeling down beside her. Dark blood spatter covering his chest and arms. 

When he speaks his voice is soft, “Hey.” His eyes sweep over her, looking at the red and gold that has stained her uniform. He grimaces when he sees her face. “Are you okay?” 

She opens her mouth, but words fail her at the tightness of her chest. She watches as Mammon’s eyes go a little wider. Clear panic under the surface now that the threat has been dealt with. His hands raise to her sides, hovering as though afraid to touch. His eyes linger on the rips of her uniform near her diaphragm, his light fingers near the wounds there has her wincing away from his touch.

It’s now that she realizes that he has situated himself between her and her line of sight to whatever remains of her attacker. She appreciates it, she doesn’t want to see. 

Wordlessly, Mammon takes her hands. His clawed fingers hook under the tight metal of her cuffs and slice them free. There is so little that won’t yield to his power. “I called the others, they’ll be here soon.” he says as he frees her feet next. 

He shoves the rest of the chair away from her. Setting down to sit on his knees, his arm reaches around her shoulders careful of her wounds there. Slowly he guides her towards him, leaning her into his chest and tucking her head under his chin. 

“You came,” she finally manages to choke out.

“You summoned me,” Mammon replies. “I will always come when you call.”

The flood of emotions is almost enough to overwhelm her. Her body gives a slight shake as tears begin to spill down her cheeks. ‘Stupid human weakness’, she thinks to herself as she still allows Mammon to hold her. She feels his wings come to wrap protectively around them both, with the points of his wings even being careful of Luke. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers into her hair. “You’re going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to the first chapter! Thank you for taking the time to read! 
> 
> I just wanted to say that as of writing this I haven’t gotten past Lesson 23 yet (curse you giant difficulty spike!). So I doubt I'll be spoiling anything major as far as post lesson 20 goes. This idea has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now. No big surprise as it seems to be a popular consensus among fandom, but I also wasn't super thrilled with how the devs settled the whole Belphie thing. So this is my attempt to explore the time loops and the consequences a bit more.
> 
> I would love to see your theories and thoughts in the comments! Thank you again for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

White light glows from Simeon’s hands. His brow knit in concentration as he worked the healing energy into her chest, where the worst of the damage was. It was surreal to have heard it snap and crack back into its rightful shape, even when there had been no pain. A small blessing she was thankful for.

Her eyes kept glancing at Luke, laying on the couch opposite her. She had only allowed Simeon to begin healing her after he had assured her that Luke would be okay. “It takes more than that to kill an angel,” he had kindly told her while firmly directing her to lay down. 

One of Simeon’s glowing hands drifted by her face. She heard more than felt the snap of whatever had broken in her nose fit back into place. The noise of it had Mammon pausing in his pacing of the room. Looking at Simeon’s hand, she did not see him grimace before continuing his path.

Each of her demons watched like hawks as Simeon worked to heal the worst of her injuries. Even as each of them stood and sat in various places around the room, she could feel the oppressive energy of their power in the air. All of their worry and anger boiling just under the surface as they waited for her to be healed.

While Mammon had killed the demon responsible for her injuries, it wasn’t nearly enough to satiate their need for retribution. They were the lords of the Devildom and someone had actually dared to attack what was theirs. If she could see his face, she would’ve seen Asmo’s eyes glowing with a lightly restrained pink glow of bloodlust. 

Lucifer, Diavolo and Barbatos were in another room discussing the matter while they were all waiting in the common room.

“That’s the worst of it,” Simeon said gently as the glow in his hands faded. “The rest you should heal with a potion and sleep.”

“Thank you, Simeon,” she said as she slowly started to sit up. Only for Simeon to place a hand on her clavicle.

“Stay like that for a bit longer,” he instructed as she relaxed back into the couch at his touch. When he was sure she wouldn’t try again, he turned his attention to Luke.

Mammon was beside her in an instant, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. Something Lucifer chastised him for constantly, but now no one discouraged him. She lifted her hand the rest of the way to meet his hesitating outstretched one; like he was still afraid to touch her. His fingers threading into hers on contact and his thumb brushed back and forth along the back of her hand.

“What happened,” Satan finally asked, ignoring the look that Simeon shot his direction. His need to know over powering the need to let her rest. It was better to get the information now while it was all still fresh.

She didn’t mind. “We were walking back here when that scaly one attacked,” she started. “It attacked me first, but Luke stopped it with some kind of light. Then it attacked him and -” the memory of claws digging into Luke’s chest had her swallowing. “It hit him across the chest. Luke stunned it, but he passed out. I grabbed him and made a run for it. We got away for a moment before the shadowy one showed up.” 

Mammon’s hand stilled in hers for a moment. “What?”

“The shadowy one tripped me,” she started to explain but Mammon interrupted her again.

“There were two of them?” 

“Yeah,” she replied, ignoring the surge of energy that washed over the air of the room. None of her demons liked the news of a surviving attacker. “There was the scaly one and a shadowy one.”

“There was only one corpse in that lair,” Lucifer’s familiar voice said from the edge of the room. She couldn’t see from where she laid on the couch, but it seemed that Lucifer, Lord Diavolo and Barbatos had finally joined them. 

“Maybe it slipped away? The shadowy one kept hiding in the darkness,” she replied. 

As he came into view, Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest. “We would’ve been able to sense another’s presence there. Especially that of a lower demon.” 

“I saw them,” she insisted. “It tripped me on the street and then I think it stopped Luke from fighting back too. I watched that one hold his hands back even when his light burned the scaled one.” 

That had Simeon looking back over at her. “No demon should be able to stand touching direct radiant energy,” he stated.

“What did it look like,” Lord Diavolo asked. Though a kind smile was on his face, his golden eyes showed a sea of furry. This was his reputation they had attacked after all. 

“They were made of shadow, semi-transparent, and they didn’t have a lot of features. Their limbs were long, like the proportions were wrong, and they had white eyes that glowed. In that room I could really only see their eyes at times.” she replied.

“There aren’t any -” Lucifer began to say before being interrupted.

“You’re sure the eyes were white?” Barbatos asked as all eyes in the room fell on him. 

“Yes,” she replied.

“Were they fully white? No iris or pupil?” He asked, handing her a wet cloth to wipe the blood off her face.

She shook her head. “No, they were just white.”

He looked at her for a long moment. She looked back, though she couldn’t read whatever gears were turning in his head. She wiped at the dried blood that had caked onto her face. When she finished she saw the cloth was covered in flakes of dried, muddy brown blood. ‘Gross’, she thought.

When he spoke again, he asked the oddest question of the night. “Did the other demon see or talk to them at all?”

“What kind of question -” Mammon started to say before a look from Lucifer silenced him. Something was wrong. The odd expression in his eyes was not something she was used to seeing. Lucifer always had answers, but something told her that this was an unknown for the oldest brother. 

She took a moment to think. Had the scaled demon interacted with the shadowy one? _“Did you trip, little lamb?”_ The scaled one had said, it had seemed so taunting as the shadowy one held her down. But what if the scaled one could not see the other? It would look like she had tripped on her own. 

She thought of the shadowy one holding Luke’s hands back, how the scaled one didn’t comment on it. No, the scaled one acted like they were the only one in the room. They never spoke to the shadowy demon either: never issued a command or comment.

And she never heard the shadow speak.

“I don’t think they did,” she finally answered. “It never spoke and the scaly one never spoke to it either.”

She watched as Barbatos’ eyes glowed an odd mix of blue-green. The blend of colors reminded her of watching sand falling in an hourglass. Perhaps this was how he watched time. It was far more convenient than constantly using the doors in his room.

The moment passed, Barbatos’ eyes stopped glowing and he shared an indecipherable look with Lord Diavolo. “It’s something to consider,” he finally said while looking back to her again. “However, I do believe you’ve been recommended a potion and some rest.”

He held a long, glass bottle with a swirling red liquid in it. She leaned up with her elbows for support as she took the offered bottle. He traded the bottle for the cloth. Sitting up into a seated position she uncorked it and drank it in two gulps. She tried - and failed - to hide her expression at the taste. 

“Ugh, why does healing have to taste so bad?” she asked. Barbatos took the empty bottle back with a small smile.

Conversation continued, but the potion kicked in quickly. Though she tried to pay attention to their words around her, she blinked once, twice, and then she lost track of the conversation. It felt like the time between a third blink when Mammon had given her a light shake. 

She realized she had fallen asleep, but for how long she wasn’t sure. At least Luke was awake now too, and he beamed at her as she looked at him and smiled. Their mutual relief that the other was okay was clear.

“Sorry,” she apologized, trying to sit back up to prevent herself from dozing off again. 

Lord Diavolo smiled kindly once more. “We did say rest. However I feel that your bed would be far better than the couch. Go lay down, you’ve been through an ordeal today and we can always discuss this another time.” 

Mammon was already guiding her, helping her to stand. She knew there was little room for argument. Even if she did, she didn’t currently have the energy to keep herself awake.

“Thank you,” she managed, as Mammon and her began to cross the room. “Have a good night.”

* * *

Something isn’t right. Every instinct screams at her to run. _‘Belphie….he hates humans,’_ she recalls Mammon saying. 

She’s back in the attic. A pinprick of consciousness tells her this is a dream: a memory. It does nothing to stop the rest of the events from playing out before her. 

Her hesitation is long enough that Belphegor’s arms drift back to his sides.

“All I wanted was to share my excitement with you,” Belphie says with his smile still too wide. Were his words sincere, she may have felt guilty for the mistrust. Except that most of her interactions with him up to this point had been based on lies. He begins to laugh and the memory of her knows her feelings are justified. It’s a dark, maniacal laugh that fills the room of the attic. 

That blip of consciousness tells her that this is where it goes wrong. It's the only preparation she has.

Her foot drifts backwards, trying to take a step away. Quicker than she thought possible Belphegor closes the gap between them. His fingers find and tighten around her throat. She blinks and instead of the human looking man she’s been seeing in secret the last few months she finds herself face to face with the terror that is Belphegor’s demon form: the curved horns and the angry flick of his tail behind him.

“You humans really are foolish, idiotic, weak creatures, aren’t you?” The dream memory echos Belphegor’s words as he lifts her off the ground with otherworldly strength. 

She’d had clarity of mind enough to scold herself at the time. _‘Never trust a demon’_ , Luke had warned her. Belphegor had already lied about who - and what - he was and why he was imprisoned. Yet still she trusted him. A misplaced trust that was the death of her.

“You’re so stupid that I can’t help but laugh. Don’t blame me for tricking you, blame yourself for falling for it.” Belphegor laughs, dark and menacing. Her hands find his on her neck and she pulls futility. She’s dangling, air starting to cut off, and her strength is only human. She tries to kick, tries to get loose; but it’s useless. She’s entirely at his mercy. “If you die, the exchange program will be ruined, and Diavolo’s reputation will be in tatters,” he says, amused by her struggling. 

‘He’s going to kill me’, the memory of thoughts past ring in her panic filled head. Around her vision things are starting to go fuzzy, blackness starting to close in from her peripheral. The part of her that knows this is a memory - _a dream_ \- tries to remind her of such, but the panic is louder. Her thoughts repeat, ‘he’s going to kill me’, before the last of her oxygen escapes her and the fight in her leaves with it. 

There’s a sharp pain and a sickening crunch in her ears. 

Then she’s not looking through her own eyes anymore. She blinks and now she is an onlooker at the memory. She watches as Belphie crushes her throat in his grasp. It feels weird to see herself like this. 

The worst part is she remembers feeling this even after Barbatos corrected the timeline. Despite his assurances that this version of events never happened to her, she knew that it had. She remembered, just as each of the brothers remembered the upcoming events too. 

The dream moves, she watches Belphie drag her half-dead body out of the attic and down the stairs. She is forced to follow, an onlooker of the dream. 

They reach the bottom of the stairs, Belphie continuing to the entrance way of the house. But she looks behind the stairs to see the other version of her that will wake up soon. The version of herself that the timelines will converge unto. 

She’s lying curled up under the stairs and she’s asleep. Her dream self has enough free thought to wonder how she had gotten under the stairs to begin with. She didn’t remember going there and sleeping. It wasn’t something she would’ve done on her own.

She blinks and the dream has corrected itself.

No longer looking at herself under the stairs, her eyes barely flutter open and she’s looking up at a set of yellow-blue eyes wide with absolute horror. Mammon, she realizes. Confusion clouds her mind for a moment, wondering what could cause him to be so frightened and worried.

She tires to speak, wants to reassure him - to ask what’s wrong - when words fail her with nothing but a gurgle at the back of her crushed throat. She winces from the pain of it and Mammon makes an injured noise around her. 

‘Right,’ her dream-self remembers. ‘I’m dying.’ 

If she could feel anything at all right now, she’d feel his tightening grip around her shoulder as he cradles her. 

“Lucifer, can’t you do anything?” Someone - Asmo? - whines nearby. 

She doesn’t hear a reply, if any. Mammon’s eyes are glossy and welling up. His lips tremble, repeating the same words over and over like a prayer: “Don’t… don’t, please don’t -” his voice cracks with emotion as he tries to force the words out. “Don’t die.”

It takes every ounce of energy she has left for her to move her hand, to lift it up to his cheek. The devastated look in his eyes breaks her heart. ‘I never gave them my soul,’ the memory of herself thinks through the haze of pain in the dream. ‘What’s going to happen…’ her thoughts trail off. Her hand begins to fall back from Mammon, but he catches it.

Her vision starts to fail her again.

“Belphie, what have you done?” she hears Beel - definitely Beel she has the clarity to think - with a tremble in his voice.

Somewhere behind her there’s a shout. She doesn’t know from whom, as several voices start raising in alarm.

Despite the heaviness of her eyelids, she doesn’t feel them close before the world around her fades completely. There’s nothing for a moment before she feels feather light.

‘That was death,’ her dream-self realizes. She’s a third party again as she watches two versions of herself in the room. The one in Mammon’s arms dissipates into light and the one in the doorway begins to tell the story of Lilith to an angry Belphegor.

“I should’ve come sooner,” a familiar voice says, cutting off the conversation in the room. The dream scene ignores it, but now there is no more conversation. The dream freezes. She looks over her shoulder and Belphegor is standing with his hand on her shoulder. “This is the last thing you should be dreaming about tonight.” he says with a warm smile as the scene around her melts and shifts into something else. 

Their surroundings change and now they’re sitting on a park bench. It’s sunny, warm air with a pleasant breeze like a spring day. The shade of the tree to their backs completes the scene. She realizes that they’re sitting at the park near her home in the human realm.

“This is better,” Belphegor says. He looks out at the movement of the park around them, taking in the details of this new memory he’s called upon. 

“Thanks,” she says. “Did I miss a lot of the conversation earlier?” 

“Nothing too important,” he answers. “Do you dream about that often?” he asks instead. Her death, her murder by his hands, remains unsaid but she knows what he means.

“Not lately,” she answers truthfully. “I did the first few nights after. But it stopped after awhile.” 

“Before or after our pact?” he asks. His hand comes up to her neck, his fingers tracing his sigil on the back of her cervical vertebrae. The place she wanted the mark of his pact. The place where his hands crushed the life out of her. 

“After,” she answers honestly. He hums thoughtfully. She changes the topic, “Any idea what that shadowy demon I saw was?”

“Do you remember what it looked like? You can show me here and it won’t be able to hurt you.” 

She nods, recalling what it looked like in her mind’s eye. Belphie’s eyes glow a light purple. When she looks up, back over the park again, the shadowy form is standing in front of them as they sit on the bench. It doesn’t move, doesn’t attack. It stands before them: elongated limbs, semi-transparent form, and glowing white eyes. 

Belphegor sits up on the bench, studying the creature from her memory. Clear confusion on his features. “I’ve never seen a demon like this before.” he finally says. 

“I can show you what it did, if that helps.” she offers.

Belphie shakes his head, dismissing the shadowy memory in front of them with the wave of his hand. “You’re supposed to be resting. You don’t need to relive that right now.” 

“I’m not scared, I have you.” She replies and catches the smile that pulls at the corners of his mouth. 

His eyes begin to glow again and she shows him two different visions of events. The first being the one where the shadowy being tripped her, it’s hand holding her in place by her ankle. The second is blurry since her sight at the time had been obscured by Luke’s light. But she tries her best to show him how the being had held Luke’s hands away from the scaled demon.

Again Belphie studies both memories. “I’ll have to ask Satan if he’s come across anything in his research.” he finally says before banishing both images. 

She nods and settles on the bench, her head on his shoulder as he wraps an arm around her. 

Together they watch the scene of the park before them. Birds flying between the trees, chirping their various songs. Children play a game of frisbee in the distance. It’s peaceful, and for that she’s grateful. 

Eventually though, a bird nearby begins to chirp her alarm. The dream warbles around them. 

“I’ll see you at breakfast,” Belphie says before the dream fades completely. 

She blinks and she wakes in her bed.


	3. Chapter 3

After stepping out of the shower she took a moment to pause in front of the mirror. Wiping her hand over the fog, she had a moment to properly inspect the damage. 

Thanks to Simeon’s efforts, no one would ever be able to tell her ribs and nose had been so broken. Additionally, due to the potion last night, the worst of the cuts and scrapes had healed. The only lingering sign that she had endured any injury at all were the claw marks on her shoulder, which were now sealed up and red looking. They would no doubt leave scars, but she had skipped the worst of the healing and for that she wouldn’t complain. 

In her inspections of her shoulder she caught sight of her pact sigils: Mammon’s golden one on her collarbone right above her sternum, Leviathan’s orange one swirled atop her left shoulder, Beezlebub’s red one sitting just below her diaphragm, Asmodeus’ pink one stamped along her right hip bone, Satan’s green one between her shoulder blades, and Belphegor’s purple one on the back of her neck. Each had become a familiar comfort to see in her reflection. It was becoming harder to remember a time when their symbols didn’t decorate her skin. 

She finished her morning routine and dressed into a fresh uniform for the day. She used the mirror to help complete the double windsor knot of her tie. Once she was sure she looked presentable, she left her bathroom and headed to the dining room for breakfast. 

As she entered the dining room, whatever conversation that was transpiring ended as everyone watched her take her seat. 

“What are you doing awake?” Lucifer asks by way of greeting.

“Uh, good morning to you too. I have school today?” she replies while reaching for the coffee pot.

Lucifer shook his head. “No, you have the day off.” 

“Really?” she asks.

“You were attacked yesterday,” Lucifer replies as though he can’t believe he needs to state the obvious. “It was felt to be in your best interest to give you an additional day to recover.” 

“Oh,” was all she said as she took her first sip of coffee. This morning’s black coffee of melancholy is particularly bitter, prompting her to think about who’s turn it was to cook this morning. Coffee this bitter is usually Satan’s MO.

“Satan will be staying home with you today,” Lucifer continued. 

“Why him?!” Mammon asks, clearly insulted.

“I have research to catch up on,” Satan replies. 

“You always have research,” Mammon shoots back. “It’s never kept ya home before.”

“Mammon, don’t pout. It shows immaturity.” Lucifer replies over his own mug of coffee. 

Mammon leaned back in his chair, grumbling something indecipherable in Infernal. But that seemed to settle the matter, as discussion moved to other things. However, it seemed that whatever they had been discussing before she arrived was being put on hold. 

She knew better than to ask. 

Sooner than she would’ve liked breakfast was over. She helped clear the table before the brothers left. “I can handle a few dishes,” she said at Lucifer’s insistence that she didn’t need to help with chores today. ‘I don’t want to be coddled,’ she thought to herself as she helped Beel pack leftovers. ‘My own human weakness is annoying enough on its own.’ 

Then it was just her and Satan alone in the house. “I’ll be in the library if you need me,” he said as she wrapped up in the kitchen.

“Mind if I join you there? I have a paper I need to write.” She asked.

Satan, ever happy for the company even when they were involved in their own orbits, replied, “I don’t mind at all. See you there.”

* * *

She found Satan where he said he would be. He was on the couch in front of the fireplace already immersed in a book. Two of his green Little Ds were stacking a small pile on the floor for him. She spotted a third on a ladder struggling to pull out a rather heavy looking book from one of the upper shelves. 

She took her seat at the writing desk, pulling out paper and her copy of ‘ _A Brief Recounting of Devildom History_ ’. They stayed like that for a while; the fireplace crackling and her note taking adding to the otherwise silence of the room. Until she came across a particular passage:

> “In the first age of The Demon King’s reign the Devildom was organized into the official layers we know to this day. Prior to this, the souls of mortals sent to the Devildom were assigned to the layers at random. After their organization the souls sent to those layers were better organized by their various corruptions during their mortal life.
> 
> Of course mortal souls that survive and avoid being consumed by demons roaming those realms are eventually warped and twisted into demons themselves. Those sent to the upper layers usually become lesser demons: Imps, Sprites, Little Ds, etc.”  
> 

The information was nothing earth shattering, but the footnote caught her attention: “Shades not included in this category.” What exactly was a Shade? Greek myth would have her believe they were the spirits of the dead. But she knew enough about the Devildom to know that not all human world myths were based in fact.

She flipped to the index but was disappointed to find that the only mention of them in her textbook was on the page she just read. She stood from the desk and went to check the card catalogue, because of course their house library would have one. 

“Looking for anything?” Satan asks without taking his eyes from his reading.

“Do you have anything about Shades?” she asks instead, figuring it would be easier than flipping through the catalogue. If anyone would know the contents of the house library like the back of their hand, it would be Satan. 

Her question has Satan looking up at her. Whatever he had expected her to ask, that hadn’t been it. “What do you need to know about Shades for?” 

“The textbook had a weird footnote that mentioned them. It doesn’t elaborate or anything and I thought it was worth getting clarification on.” She replies honestly.

Satan gives a light growl, issuing some command in Infernal. There is a _‘pop’_ as the Little Ds reappeared. He gave them another command and immediately they set off to collect more books. “What was the context of the footnote?” he eventually asks. 

“The chapter is on the history and distinctions of the nine layers of the Devildom. It said that mortal souls that survive in whatever layer they’re assigned can become lesser demons, but the footnote said that Shades didn’t fall into that category. So I’m curious what they are instead.” She replies. She watches as one of the Little Ds places a book on her desk. 

“Shades are rare and rather tricky to place in the hierarchy,” Satan says. Something about his word choice has her thinking that he is being careful with the information. “Usually it takes time for the Devildom to twist and morph a soul into a demon. Shades arrive here as they are.” 

“Huh,” she mused, taking in the information. “What would someone have to do to show up like that?” 

“That’s just the thing,” he replies as a Little D brought him another book that he took to replace the one he had been reading. “No one’s exactly sure how or what triggers their formation.” She watched him flip to the index to look something up. 

Sensing the conversation was over, she returned her attention back to her own work. Picking up one of the two books the Little Ds had left her, she began her own research. Although she didn’t really gain any additional information. There were no images of them within either book; and their descriptions varied widely from human looking ghosts to masses of dark shadow that resembled a person.

As per usual, asking Satan was her best source of information. 

She finished her paper shortly afterwards. Around lunch time she decided to take a break. “Hey Satan. I’m going to go fix lunch, do you want anything?” She asked. 

“Tea would be nice, if you don’t mind.” He replied, not looking up from his book. It was the same one the Little D had fetched upon her request for information about Shades. 

Was that what had attacked her, she wondered. A Shade? But then, why wouldn’t Belphie recognize it in her dream? She was certain that he would’ve recognized a Shade at least, even if their appearance varied. 

She returned with Satan’s tea and a backstabbing sandwich for herself. “Thank you,” Satan said, taking the mug from her hand. 

“Can I ask you a question,” she asked as she walked back to the desk.

“You just did,” Satan replied.

“Ha ha,” she said with no infliction. “You know what I mean.” 

Satan smiled around the lip of the mug. “Of course you can.” 

“What do you think the shadow that attacked me was?” She asked. “I showed it to Belphie last night in a dream, but he said he’d never seen a demon like it before.” 

The drop of Satan’s smile is enough to tell her that he isn’t pleased in the mystery of it either. But the look in his eyes tells her that he had at least anticipated this conversation eventually. “I’m hoping to figure that out before the end of the day,” is his honest reply. “You were the only one who saw it. Not even Luke caught a glimpse of it, even when you said that you watched it hinder his ability to fight back.” 

“He didn’t see it?” she asks.

“No,” Satan replies, putting the mug down. “There are very very few beings that can withstand the burn of radiant energy directly from an angel. There are even fewer that can avoid being seen by one.” 

“That bad, huh?” she asks after taking time to chew a bite of her sandwich. 

“Whatever it was, we will figure it out.” he says. She could feel his hesitation though, so she waited for the other shoe to drop. “But, I should probably warn you that Lucifer will want to keep you here in the house until we figure it out.”

And there it was. Not the best news for sure, but she at least understood the reasoning behind it. 

“That makes sense,” she replied. “It’d be hard to protect me against something no one else seems to see.” It made sense, but she didn't have to like it.

* * *

The rest of the day came and went. Dinner was uneventful and the regular ease of conversation after a day at school filled the time. 

While Satan had not discovered who or what her attacker was, Lucifer did bring up the subject of staying in the house until her safety could be assured again. For once she didn’t argue.

Afterwards, she returned to her room and was joined by Mammon. He sat at her table, doing his homework while she sat on her bed and flipped through the additional books on Shades Satan had given her in the library. Though the information is interesting, there is nothing terribly illuminating in her rereading of it. Still, she feels she's overlooking something.

It didn’t take long before Mammon forgot about his homework in favor of cuddling into her bed. He laid down along the length of her bed with his arms around her middle and his head in her lap; she played with his hair absentmindedly as she read. Her fingers ran through the wisps of his bangs in the way she knew he liked.

“A grimm for your thoughts,” she asks. 

“I don’t like that it’s taking so long to find out who that shadowy bastard was,” Mammon replies. 

“It’s only been a day,” she says. “Patience is a virtue and all that.” 

“Well I’m a demon and we don’t really have those, now do we?” is his quick remark. “I don’t like that someone thought they could attack you and just get away with it.” His arms around her tighten as he says it.

She puts the book down, threading her newly freed hand into his hair too. “I know,” she replies, “but I also know they won’t get away from you for long.”

She listens to his content hum, almost a purr as she plays with his hair. “Damn right they won’t.” 

It wasn’t long until Mammon dozed off and she was left alone to her own thoughts.

She hadn’t dreamt about her death at Belphie’s hands in months now. Normally she would attribute it to stress or her near death experience with the scaled demon the day prior; however something didn’t feel quite right about it.

She’d never before dreamt of it in such detail or with such free thought before. And never once had she appeared as an onlooker to the events of that particular memory.

Right after the incident Barbatos had said not to worry too much about the specifics. He assured her the version of herself that was dead didn’t exist anymore. But she knew that to not be the whole truth: she did exist in memory, feeling, and the occasional nightmare. From the moment the dead body of herself that she had looked upon disappeared in a shimmer of light, those memories and feelings crashed back into her. The broken pieces of that version of herself had rejoined with her present.

Some part of her insisted that no matter how big concepts of time travel and space were beyond her understanding she at least knew that if those events had never happened, then the memory wouldn’t exist. The memory wouldn’t exist for herself or for any of the brothers either. 

But yet the memory still did. 

Despite Barbatos’ assurance at the time, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had rewritten the timeline. ‘This is a classic case of the Grandfather Paradox’, she thinks. Lord Diavolo had given her the task of finding out who let Belphie out in the original timeline. How could the door have opened without Barbatos sending her back? How could she be given the task only for Belphie to kill her? How had he surprised them all in the library that first time, only for him to make a spectacle of her death the second time around? 

No matter how she tried to make sense of it, the time loop didn’t make sense. 

Furthermore they had all had that heart to heart with Lucifer explaining what had happened to Lilith after their fall. That conversation happened, there had been healing in Lucifer telling his brothers the truth. But now, it only happened in her memory and the truth to them existed in her explanation. How could Lucifer have told her the truth for her to pass along to this timeline if the events never happened now?

Trying to wrap her head around it all was enough to give her a headache. 

‘If only someone else had done this all before,’ she thought. ‘Then I’d have something to compare it to. I might even be able to figure out how it all worked.’ It was a nice enough thought, but she knew there was nothing of the sort. 

She almost laughed at herself for sounding like Levi. He would ask for a walkthrough to life and it’s strange events. 

The realization hits her like a sack of bricks. There is a walkthrough. 

‘Fucking TSL,’ she realizes. If anything would have advice or a method for figuring the events out, it would be one of the books in that series. Nothing else had mapped the events of the brothers lives so well. There just had to be something in one of the hundred-odd novels in the series.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the pact marks my own personal headcanon is that they're the symbols on the cards in-game. However, for the sake of immersion and whatever you want to think of them, I just described them by color here. Feel free to interpret them as actual sigils or symbols or whatever floats your boat. 
> 
> Also the Grandfather Paradox for those who don’t know is the idea that if you time travel to the past and accidentally kill your grandfather as a child, then you wouldn’t exist. However if you don’t exist, then how could you have traveled backwards in time to accidentally kill him?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to Tumblr user lilli-chae for isolating all of the Obey Me chat emojis. Links to her posts are [Here](https://lilli-chae.tumblr.com/post/615184572120006656/please-likereblog-if-you-use-i-worked-so-hard?is_related_post=1#notes), [Here](https://lilli-chae.tumblr.com/post/615184346549256192/please-likereblog-if-you-use-i-worked-so-hard?is_related_post=1#notes), and [Here](https://lilli-chae.tumblr.com/post/615184658868617216/please-likereblog-if-you-use-i-worked-so-hard?is_related_post=1#notes)

**L3VI4TH4N (2)**

**01:30**

> **MC:** Hey Levi, in what volume of TSL does Henry get trapped in the past by the knight of the underworld?
> 
> **L3VI:** Volume 16
> 
> **L3VI:** Why? 
> 
> **MC:** Can I borrow your copy? I realize that the plot point was skipped in the 2015 adaptation of TSL.
> 
> **L3VI:** ROTFL, Yeah they totally didn’t have the budget to do that particular story arc justice. Would’ve involved way too much CGI for them to even attempt to do it right. So at least they had the good judgement to skip it instead of butchering it. 
> 
> **L3VI:** Wait you’re not thinking of just jumping into the TSL books at volume 16 are you?!
> 
> **L3VI:**
> 
> **L3VI:** You should start reading at the beginning! There are a ton of things the show had to leave out! 
> 
> **MC:** Actually I just need volume 16 because some idiot posted a theory on the TSL forum last night that is blatantly wrong. Dude’s post is all over the place. So I want the receipts for my reply.
> 
> **L3VI:**
> 
> **L3VI:** Ok I’ll lend you the book but you gotta send me a copy of your post when you’re done.
> 
> **MC:**

  


She was happy that a quick DevilNet search had given her the basic plot point to ask after. Unfortunately it did not give her the details she knew the actual source material would.

Maneuvering around a sleeping Mammon, she laid down into her own bed. She had just gotten comfortable on her side, with her back to Mammon, when she felt him roll over and nuzzle into her back. 

She didn’t mind being the little spoon though and quickly found herself embracing sleep.

* * *

She is laying down in Levi’s bathtub, comfortable in his nest of pillows as she reads. Levi is at his computer, involved in some reading of his own. It seemed it was Levi’s turn to be her babysitter while the others were at RAD for the day. 

She could always count on TSL to have covered a specific thing in the brother’s lives. Not for the first time she wondered about Christopher Peugeot and if the man was actually psychic or a prophet of some kind. His ability to have the events of reality parallel his own narrative was uncanny. 

‘Like a modern day Vergil or something,’ she thought to herself.

But just as Levi had said, she found the sub-plot she was looking for. So she read the story of Henry accepting a challenge from a knight of the underworld to clear the name of the Lord of Emptiness, who was being framed for treason by the High King of the realm.

The knight sent Henry back in time with four rules: 1) He could not be seen, 2) He could not tell anyone he was from the future, 3) He could not speak to his past self, 4) Once completing his task he must return to the future from the place he arrived from. ‘So far a pretty identical match,’ she thinks as she reads; remembering Barbatos' own rules for traveling in time.

The quest seemed straightforward enough: find out who actually committed the act of treason if it was not the Lord of Emptiness. However, as she read, she saw that Henry’s journey was anything but straightforward. 

At one point Henry tries to map out where he is in the timeline, using a stick to draw in the dirt. He starts with a line and adds a dot for the part where he thinks the series of events starts. He adds a dotted line to represent his going back in time, drawing another line under the main line to show his current reliving of the events of the past. 

But he realizes that something has gone wrong, at some point he activated the magic stone the knight gave him that allows him to access the magic of time travel. He finds that he has accidentally traveled much further back than he expected. So Henry has to draw another dotted line showing that he has gone further back in time, before the events of everything starting and the events that pertain to his quest.. 

She reads on. Realizing that he has ended up in the wrong time period, he escapes this past, jumping forward to a much more recent past. However this jump forward is not that the place where he originally entered this past. Henry realizes the mistake too late, but believes he is safe when he is back in a familiar time period. Except now the events of his original time are being altered and it’s up to another version of himself to save him. 

At the end of the book, Henry uses the knight’s magic stone to collapse time on itself and correct the events of the plot. The volume ends with Henry realizing that he would need to add a new line branching off from the original to represent what he just did.

Closing the book, she hops out of Levi’s bed. “Thanks Levi, I have to go grab my notebook!” She says as she quickly heads back to her own room. Her room is only a few doors down, so it doesn’t take long. 

There she pulls out her notebook and the color coded pens she uses for studying. Following Henry’s model, she starts with a line in black ink first. ‘This is timeline one,’ she labels it. She puts a dot down and marks it as the spot where her exchange program begins. ‘That’s where it starts,’ she settles on. Right before Belphie was locked away and she arrived in the Devildom.

In green pen she makes the first dotted line, showing her use of Barbatos’ door to travel into the past. The door that led to Mammon’s closet. 

From there she uses her red pen to indicate that somewhere in that first jump, she jumped further back like Henry did. She didn’t know what to label this. When had she gone further back in time? 

Then she drew another dotted line in purple, leading to a new branching path. That at least she knows to label as Belphie’s door. 

Looking a the diagram, she couldn’t figure out how she had gotten there. When did the second jump to a point further in the past happen? 

And more importantly, how? 

Tearing the page from her notebook, she folded it like a bookmark. She headed back to Levi’s room, intent on asking for volume 17 to see if Henry had any issues after he merged the timelines. 

‘Or it’s entirely possible I’m reading way too much into this,’ she thought to herself. 

Entering Levi’s room again, he looks up from his computer. “Find what you need?” 

“Yeah,” she replies. “Well sort of. Can I borrow volume 17 too?” 

Levi beams at her, hopping off his chair to fetch the next book from his shelf. He rattles off a dozen details, asking her opinion. 

“I wonder how Henry reconciles with collapsing the timeline,” she says. 

“Oh yeah that’s been a huge plot hole for years now.” Levi says. “I’m still hoping it comes up in the next volume being released next fall. There have been so many hints that things haven’t been quite right since he solved that quest!” 

She listens to him list a dozen loose threads that could be attributed to changing the timeline. She smiles along until she happens to catch the title of the next volume: “The Tale of the Seven Lords. Volume 17: The Shades of the Past.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter chapter, sorry. But that’s why I don’t mind posting it back to back with the last chapter. 
> 
> Here is a representation of the timey-wimey stuff talked about in this chapter:


	5. Chapter 5

She was a quarter of the way through the seventeenth volume of TSL by the time the other brothers came home and the House devolved into its usual loud chaos. She slipped her bookmark between the pages and went to help Asmo cook dinner.

“Do you mind peeling potatoes? I hate getting starch under my nails.” Asmo asked, pulling a paring knife from the drawer and gesturing to a bag of potatoes on the counter. 

“I don’t mind,” she replied. Taking up a spot on the island counter, she got to work peeling the deep red potatoes. 

They were amidst a lively conversation, Asmo giving her all the latest gossip she had missed in the last two days, when out of the corner of her eyes she spotted them: two white pinpricks that stared unblinking from the shadows. 

She stopped to stare and the eyes stared back. The knife she was using slipped from her hand, clattering against the counter. This time she could not see the shadowy body of the being as it hid in the shadows cast by the kitchen’s fireplace.

Asmo calling her name had her looking away. “Are you okay?” he asked her, noting the knife she dropped. Before replying her eyes darted back to the spot, but upon looking back the eyes were gone.

‘I’m seeing things now. Just great,’ she thought as she stared at the spot on the wall. Squinting to see if she could recreate the image herself.

Brushing the champagne-colored bangs from his face, Asmodeus looked intently where she was looking. “What’s wrong?” He asked, the bubbliness all but gone from his voice now.

“Nothing,” she finally answered. “Sorry, I think the firelight was playing tricks with my eyes.” She peeled her eyes away from the spot on the wall, willing the image of the eyes away. “The shadows movements caught my eye, is all.”

She felt Asmo drape himself across her shoulders, his chest pressing into her back. “Ah, don’t worry, we won’t let anything get you here.” His tone had slipped back to normal, but she could feel the pressure of the air in the room shift slightly.

She wrapped her hands around Asmo’s. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replied. She felt the pressure of Asmo’s magic let up. 

Picking the knife back up, she went back to peeling the potatoes. “Come on, let’s get dinner finished before Beel eats the plates again.”

* * *

She was nestled in the corner of her bed, back pressed against the wall. Belphie’s feet were in her lap as he dozed. Mammon had taken up the rest of the space by her pillows as he watched the movie from Levi’s laptop. Levi and Beel sat on the floor, their backs against her bed. 

They were watching some new anime Levi had gotten hooked on. It was mostly background noise to her as she continued to read. 

So far the plot of the seventeenth volume followed Henry helping the Lord of Emptiness return to the good graces of the other lords. 

“Serve as a bridge between the Lord of Emptiness and the others,” the oracle states. ‘That was Simeon’s advice,’ she recalls as she reads.

She reads: Henry helps the Lord of Fools and the Lord of Emptiness host a banquet. Henry helps the Lord and Emptiness and the Lord of Shadow with a game night with cards, chess, and dice. Henry gets roped into an accord with the Lord of Masks and the Lord of Shadow, a bonding over their mutual distrust of the Lord of Corruption. 

The pit of her stomach tightens. ‘This is everything I did,’ she realizes. The Lord of Lechery and the Lord of Emptiness help Henry pick out clothing. ‘Just like my dress for Diavolo’s birthday.’ 

She reads faster. Henry and the Lord of Fools helps the Lord of Flies get over his guilt about thinking the Lord of Emptiness was guilty of treason. Even though the Lord of Flies and the Lord of Emptiness have an emotional link, he feels guilty for suspecting his actions and doing nothing to fight his imprisonment.

It makes her think of a bowl of soup. ‘This is way too accurate,’ she thinks. She’s known that The Tale of the Seven Lords maps up with the brothers surprisingly well, but this is too much. It’s way too accurate.

‘And I’m still only in the first half,’ she thinks as she starts the next chapter. An anime ending begins to play and Levi gets up to switch DVDs. 

The chapter begins with a flashback. It’s a conversation between the Lord of Corruption and the Lord of Flies. The two lords stand outside the Lord of Emptiness’ jail cell, discussing Henry’s quest. She reads as they discuss their faith in Henry to complete the knight of the underworld’s quest in the past. ‘This doesn’t feel like it’s in the right spot,’ she thinks. ‘Is this one of the plot holes Levi mentioned?’

Henry had merged the timelines at the end of volume 16, so how could they have had this conversation? ‘Is this a conversation that happened between the brothers when I went through the door?’ she wonders.

Are the versions of everyone she had left behind in the original timeline are still there? Would they still be waiting for her to come back? Or did Barbatos explain that she needed to be part of this timeline now? Or did they cease to be as soon as Barbatos collapsed the timelines?

What is worse - she wonders - if they are or aren’t there? 

But as she reads, the flashback is cut off. The point of view in the writing changes, becoming that of a white-eyed shade. 

‘This is it!’ she realizes. She reads the narration of the White-Eyed Shade; a being described as warped by time. She reads as the shade attacks Henry in his sleep. Henry of course fights the shade, demanding to know who his attacker is.

> With a hiss the White-Eyed Shade states, “I am born of the future you killed.” 
> 
> “What is it you want?” Henry asks.
> 
> “I want you to bring it back,” the shade demands.
> 
> “How?”
> 
> “With the stone,” the shade states. “You broke the rules of time. Go back! Back to where you entered the time stream from.”
> 
> Henry takes a swipe with his sword, trying to keep distance between himself and the White-Eyed Shade. “I cannot do that!” 
> 
> “Then I must kill you to make him fix it!” Is the shade’s reply before he lunges to attack. 

She reads, hooked on every word and waiting for the shade to give more explanation. But it doesn’t come. The Lord of Fools shows up to save Henry at the last minute. The White-Eyed Shade vows to never give up before fading into the shadows.

The book ends and she has more questions than answers now. 

Who is the “him” that the shade refers to? Barbatos, she wonders. If so, is the shade trying to kill her so that he rewinds time? How would that fix the issue? Wouldn’t the shade just keep killing her? 

Unfolding her bookmark she looked at the lines of the timeline. More importantly, which point was she supposed to go back to? And how is she supposed to go back? 'I don't have a time stone like Henry,' she thinks, trying to puzzle the whole mess out.

* * *

It was close to two in the morning by the time her room started to empty. Levi packed up his laptop, carrying it carefully in his hands as he dragged a sleeping Mammon by the middle with his tail.

Beel picked Belphie up, waking him in the process. “Night,” Belphie waved, unbothered by being carried like a football.

“Actually, do you have a quick minute Belphie?” she asked before the twins could leave. 

Beel looked down at Belphie, who shrugged. Beel put him down, letting Belphie stand on his feet. 

Beel’s stomach growled and he looked down at himself with disappointment. “I have snacks in -” she started to say before Beel shook his head.

“I already ate the box of snacks in the closet, sorry.” Beel said. “I’m going to the kitchen. See you later,” he said to Belphie. He left with a final good night.

So she was left alone with Belphie, which was honestly what she had been hoping for. Belphie let out a yawn, “So what do you need at this infernal hour?”

“I could use your help with some memories from a few months ago. Could you help me get them in order in a dream?” she asks.

Belphie lets out a sigh, approaching the bed again and motioning for her to scoot over. She does as he settles back into bed with her. “Yeah,” he says with his hand coming to close her eyes. “Now go to sleep.” 

She finds herself asleep before hearing the end of his command. The dream around her warps and churns. It is nothing specific and she cannot pick out the details. It doesn’t last for long though, and settles when Belphie joins her.

“So what memories are you looking to explore,” he asks. 

“I was thinking about the dream from the other night and I’m a little fuzzy on the details of what happened before I opened the attic door.” She explains.

“You want to dream about that again?” He asks. 

“No,” she shakes her head. “I want to dream about what happened leading up to that. Not what I dreamt the other day.” 

He stares at her for a moment. “Why?” 

“I feel like something’s wrong. I think I might’ve made a mistake somewhere, but I’m not sure what exactly.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He shakes his head, the silver tips of his bangs swishing back and forth across his face. It reminds her of the swishing of his tail. “Alright,” he says and when he looks back at her it is with glowing eyes, ready to manifest her memories within the dreamscape. “If it’ll help you, then let’s see how this all plays out.”

“Thank you, Belphie.”

So she shows him.

Beginning with everyone’s plan to get her alone with Lucifer. How everyone hid and pretended to disappear as a result of Levi’s game. How Lucifer’s anger at her admission of the truth - that she had seen Belphie in the attic - brought them all running and how Belphie had just shown up. 

How Beel, Belphie, and her had gone to Purgatory Hall. How Lord Diavolo and Barbatos had taken Belphie away in magical chains. She watched her Belphie, the one here in the dream with her, wince at that. It has her reaching her hand out to hold his. Which he allows. 

Then she is showing how she and Beel had returned to the house. How each of his brothers helped her break into the tomb to touch the grimoire to get Lucifer to come out of his room. 

Together they watched Lucifer tell the events of the end of the Celestial War, his pledge to Lord Diavolo, and Lilith’s reincarnation. How they all walked back to the palace and how she agreed to Lord Diavolo’s task. She listened to Barbatos explain the rules of her time travel: Do not reveal herself as from the future, do not meet with her past self, do not make contact with anyone else from the past, and finally to return to this timeline she would need to knock on the door she used to enter the past. 

They watched as she walked into Mammon’s busy room, already failing Barbatos’ third rule. They watched as she hid in Lilith’s room to avoid meeting her past self and Lucifer outside of Levi’s room. But she notices Belphie’s breath catch in his throat as Levi enters the room.

“This isn’t possible,” he says. He’s staring at Levi as though he’s seeing a ghost and not his own brother who sat across from him at dinner only hours ago.

“What’s not,” she asks. What has she missed? 

“I just saw you enter the room in the Devildom,” Belphie states like he is still trying to convince himself. “So why does he look like…” He trails off, almost afraid to voice whatever it is aloud.

“Are we seeing the same thing?” she asks.

Belphie shakes his head. “We have to be. These are _your_ memories.”

“So you’re looking at Levi, the same Levi I’m seeing. He’s wearing his hoodie and -” 

“What?” Belphie interrupts. “No he’s not.” 

“What is he wearing then? Because I’m looking right at him and he’s wearing his usual casual clothing.” 

The sound of her name has her looking away from the dream to look directly at Belphie. “This isn’t funny. He looks like he did before our fall.”

“You’re seeing him as an angel?” she asks. Belphie just scowls at the vision of Leviathan before him, trying to puzzle out whatever it is that is happening here. 

His grip on her hand tightens as Leviathan addresses her as though she is Lilith. ‘Why didn’t that confuse me at the time?’ she wonders, watching herself as she leaves the room. She watches as her hand comes up to the door and knocks first, something she didn’t recall at all.

“I didn’t do that,” she says and Belphie looks bewildered. They follow, but instead of stepping back into the hallway outside Levi’s room they stand at the foot of the staircase leading to the attic. 

“How in the nine -” Belphie starts to say before he hears the argument above their heads. 

“Say something! Lucifer!” they hear Belphegor’s - the dream, the memory’s - voice shout from the attic.

His confusion deepens as he realizes what conversation he is hearing. “That’s just not possible! We had that argument days before you even arrived in the Devildom!” 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she admits. It was one thing to be confused herself, but to hear confirmation from Belphie that something is clearly wrong is another thing entirely.

She watches as the memory of herself hides behind the stairs as Lucifer comes down. Together Belphie and her stand, watching Lucifer ignore them as he walks by. Then she is walking up the stairs and together they follow. 

The door to his attic isn’t visible. They watch as she knocks and enters. 

“You shouldn’t have been able to open the door,” Belphie says as he watches. He had been watching like he had expected her to do something. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t just knocking and entering.

She agrees, “No I shouldn’t have. So how did I?” 

“I don’t know,” Belphie replies as together they watch as she approaches a sleeping Belphegor. As the Belphegor of memory wakes up, the dream freezes. “No need to see this again, is there?” He asks. She shakes her head. Belphie banishes the memory and now they stand alone in the attic. 

“I thought you had maybe used the pacts and your own distant relationship to me in order to open the door,” Belphie says. “But you just opened it? With Lucifer’s magic that shouldn’t have been possible.”

“That’s still a mystery,” she states. “What confuses me more is that I apparently jumped way further back in time than I should have.” 

Nodding his agreement, Belphie asks, “Yeah how the hell did you do that?”

“I don’t know!” she replies. “What worries me more is that you saw Levi as he was before the Celestial War, but I didn’t see him like that. And he talked to me like he was talking to Lilith. Belphie I couldn’t have possibly traveled that far back!”

“No, you couldn’t have. Even if you had, you don’t look anything like Lilith so he wouldn’t have confused you for her.” Belphie replies. “Furthermore, you went back to a point where Lucifer and I were arguing before you even arrived here.” 

“How did I even end up there?”

“Something went wrong with Barbatos’ magic,” he says. “Like you amplified it somehow.” 

“How could I have possibly done that if I didn’t do anything?” she asks. 

Belphie shakes his head again at her. “Barbatos said you needed to knock on the door you used to come back. What if knocking on other doors is what sent you to other points in time?” 

It makes about as much sense as anything. “Okay but what about -” 

She starts to say before her words cut off. The dream goes fuzzy at the edges around them. Belphie looks started before she’s pulled from the dream. 

Waking up, she finds herself face to face with a pair of white eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, if the devs wanted me to buy the timelines merging plot, then why did they give us 16-A and 16-C? You can’t tell us the timelines merged and everything else never happened, and then in the very same chapter give us bonus stories of the brothers from the original timeline waiting for MC to come back! Sorry not sorry devs, I’m not buying it! 
> 
> Also, I want to give a shout out to ThalFox and phairfantooooom on tumblr for their posts breaking down Lesson 16. Both of their theories inspired this fic and I highly recommend checking out their blogs!
> 
> ThalFox’s post is [Here](https://thalfox.tumblr.com/post/625096466470436864/i-wanna-know-your-opinions-on-lesson-16-like-that). And phairfantooooom’s post is [Here](https://phairfantooooom.tumblr.com/post/614745569476395008/obey-me-explained-kinda)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which that shadowy shade appears again and the brothers have a possibly troubling conversation about what it means for their human.

Face to face with a pair of white eyes, the first thing she does is try to scream. A high pitched sheek pulls its way past her throat before the shadowy hand around her neck begins to cut her air off.

Her next instinct is to flail, her limbs tangling in the sheets as she tries to fight back. She tries to swallow down her panic, but it’s becoming harder with each second of oxygen denial.

There is a haze of purple energy that flares into the room. A bang like a gunshot erupts in the space next to her. She can’t hear what follows due to the ringing in her ears, but with a gasp she finds she can breathe.

Before she realizes it, she’s shoved back on the bed towards her wall. Belphegor is standing in the middle of her room in his full demon form, purple energy radiating off of him in dangerous tendrils. It takes her a moment to register the smoking crater on her wall. 

The white-eyed shade is standing across from Belphie. She watches in horror as it quickly sinks into a puddle of shadow on the floor and zips out under the crack of her door. 

Belphie lets out a vicious curse and faster than her eyes can register, he’s out her door. Or at least the splintered remains of her door. Through the ringing in her ears she can hear him shouting. 

She scrambles out of bed and runs to the doorframe. Looking out into the hall and trying to see which direction Belphie went. 

Satan is the first to come out of his room, shirtless and green wisps of power bubbling off of him. “This had better be -” His anger dies the instant he sees the broken remnants of her door. Before she can say anything, he’s closed the distance between them. His hands reach up to her; one on her cheek and the other left hanging in the air. “What happened? Are you hurt?” 

“That shadow attacked again,” is all she manages to say. Her voice sounds off to her ears. Satan’s green eyes flare and within a blink she’s looking at his demon form too. He’s pulling out his D.D.D. when somewhere deeper in the house there is another bang, loud and strong enough to shake the foundation. 

The door to Levi’s lair is thrown open, the third-born otaku looking pissed at having whatever game or show interrupted. Whatever threats or insults Levi had prepared die on his lips at the sight of her and Satan in the hallway.

“We’re under attack,” Satan hisses at Levi as he taps at his contacts. “Get Mammon!”

Levi dashes down the hallway with a speed unlike anything she would have expected of him. As Satan brings the phone up to his ear, at the opposite end of the hallway - the direction Levi had not run - the white-eyed shade skids back into view. 

Frozen, she watches as it begins to glide down the hallway in her direction. ‘It’s getting closer!’ her panicked thoughts finally catch up with her. She grabs at Satan’s hand, pointing with her other as the words won’t form in her mouth.

Belphie skids into the hallway. “Catch it!” he shouts. But Satan doesn’t move.

The shade zips past. And Satan is left standing at her side, blinking at Belphie with the shade to his back now. 

“You let it get away!” Belphie shouts, running down the hallway in an attempt to catch up. Satan doesn’t make any attempt to stop Belphie either. His eyes flick down to her, confusion and concern all over his face. 

“You didn’t see it?” She states more than asks. Luke couldn’t either, she recalls. 

“No,” he admits.

* * *

Belphie loses the shade after the hallway. With the house awake and in chaos, they all search for the better part of an hour before they find themselves assembled in the common room. 

“Let me make sure I’m understanding this,” Lucifer says after hearing an explanation of events. “She had a night terror and you thought we were under attack?” 

“You think I did all of that because of a nightmare?!” Belphie snaps. “I know the difference between dreams and reality! I saw it! It had it’s nasty hands around her neck!”

Before Lucifer can reply, Satan speaks up. “Belphegor, I saw you in the hallway and you weren’t chasing anything.” 

“I saw it!” Belphie insists. “And you let it run right past you!”

Beel moves a tentative hand towards his twin. “Maybe you saw -” 

“I know what I saw!” Belphie shouts with his fangs visible and the barely restrained flicker of his horns coming in and out of view.

Carefully, she speaks up. “Luke didn’t see it either when we were attacked.”

“Invisible to not, it would be beyond brazen for anyone to attempt to attack you under this roof. Far more so when you’re in the same bed as one of us.” Satan states.

“Yeah, about that,” Mammon interjects. “What were you still doing in MY human’s bed?”

“Not the point,” she replies quickly, cutting off that conversation before it starts. Now is not the time for the usual territorial remarks. 

Before Mammon can reply to her, Lucifer’s gloved hand comes under her chin. “Look up,” he instructs. She doesn’t argue, instead moving her head in accordance with his guidance; she allows him to see whatever it is that has caught his interest on her neck. He growls something in Infernal, deep within his chest as his hand pulls away from her. 

“I’m calling Lord Diavolo,” he finally says. 

Mammon gapes while she stares. “Why?” he asks.

“Because nonexistent shadows don’t leave bruises in the shape of a hand,” Lucifer replies coolly as he strides out of the room. 

Eyes snap in her direction, looking for evidence of injury that they’ve overlooked. Her hand goes to her neck and, sure enough, at her poking she can feel the familiar tenderness of skin that will surely bruise.

But that’s not what worries her the most at the moment. Why could she and Belphie see it when no one else could? 

Her demons sit around her and seethe in the quiet of the common room. It’s similar to the scene that played in this very room only two days ago as Simeon healed her. She allows Asmo to drape an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close for comfort. She rests her head on his shoulder and watches the room.

Belphie lets his demon form show, long nails tapping away on the arm of the chair he’s seated in. His tail flicking back and forth at his feet.

Leviathan has done the same, but holds his tail in his lap as he scrolls through his D.D.D. With the intensity of his stare on the screen, she knows he’s not flipping through manga or fanworks forums.

Satan sits on the opposite end of the couch from her. Sitting with his legs crossed and composed on the outside at least. But by the flicker of green in his eyes she knows that he is probably boiling under the surface as he thinks through the events of the past hour: the fact that her attacker avoided him completely.

Mammon has taken to pacing back and forth along the length of the room in front of the fireplace. He looks at each shadow dancing from the firelight as if any of them will suddenly spring forth and attack.

Beel sits on the couch opposite hers. Despite his casual demeanor, his field of view is on the room’s windows and doors. He’ll be the first to know when Lucifer, or someone else, enters the room. Or at least he will if he’s able to see it.

Lucifer is gone for the better part of thirty minutes before he reappears. Everyone looks up with rapt attention for whatever news he’s gained on the subject. 

“You’ll be spending the rest of the night in my room,” he explains. “We’ll be discussing the matter with Lord Diavolo personally tomorrow morning.”

“Why your room?” Mammon asks.

Lucifer offers her a gloved hand, which she accepts and allows him to pull her from her seat on the couch in Asmo’s embrace. “To keep an eye on her safety for the rest of the night.” He states matter-of-factly. 

“She could -” Mammon starts, but stops at the look Lucifer shoots in his direction.

“We will address this in the morning. In the meantime, go back to your rooms and sleep.” Lucifer says and he begins to guide her out of the room.

“Night,” she says over her shoulder as she is led away. The rest of them watch her go, walking out of the room with Lucifer. They stay where they stand and sit, scattered in their respective spots. 

Until Satan uncrosses his legs and leans into his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. “Tell us the details about the memories you saw,” he says to Belphie.

So Belphegor does. He gives them all the details from the point of an argument they had in another timeline and onwards. He finishes his retelling of the events of her memories and the room falls silent. 

“But I didn’t -” Levi mutters and fidgets with his tail. “I couldn’t have been in Lilith’s room that day.”

“That’s the part that concerns you?” Satan snaps. “That she saw you in that room and not that Belphie saw you in the celestial realm? Or that they saw two different versions of the same event?”

“It was a dream,” Asmo says with a wave of his hand.

“No,” Belphie corrects. “Any other time I would agree. But I was specifically using that space to sort through her memories. What she saw was real and it’s what she experienced.” 

“So, putting possible celestial realm visits aside, you’re thinking it has to do with Barbatos?” Mammon states. “How could she continue to draw on his power without meaning to - no, without a pact! That doesn’t make any sense.” 

Levi rolls his eyes at his older brother. “None of this makes any sense. Pacts have a give and take, but she has no magic to even draw on our pacts.” 

“True,” Satan states, leaning back into the couch and bringing a hand under his chin in thought. “We bound ourselves to her and it’s one-sided as far as the pacts themselves are concerned. However, I think we can all agree that there’s nothing all that normal about her.”

“She’s mundane though. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill human!” Mammon protests.

“But she summoned you,” Levi points out.

Mammon shakes his head. “She knows the words for a summoning, but it’s not the same. She can say them all she wants, and yeah I’ll know when she’s calling, but it’s not a true summons. She can’t _force_ me to her.”

“So she is just a normie,” Levi says.

“She’s quite the opposite,” Asmo interjects. “Don’t forget that she was able to draw out more of my power than Solomon can.”

Beel frowns. “But I thought he lent her use of his magic.” 

“He did but if it were only an echo of Solomon’s power, then her drawing out of my power would’ve been weaker and not stronger.” Asmo replies, gesturing with his hand. “So we know that she has deeper magical potential than what she manifests currently.”

“So you think she might act as a conduit?” Satan asks, nodding along. “It would explain how she magnifies certain magical effects. Or it might be a side effect of her heritage.”

“You think her celestial heritage has anything to do with it?” Belphie asks.

Satan shrugs. “It’s a possibility. Not many humans have celestial heritage and it might be the cause for her unusual interactions with magic. Or at least answer why she had that odd moment with Leviathan in a different timeline.”

“She’s so far removed from Lilith though,” Belphie says. “How much of that heritage could actually be in effect? Especially when it’s so muddled by generations of human lineage.”

“Muddled as it is, it’s still a factor.” Satan states.

Beel hums. “I feel like we’re overlooking something important here. Magic and lineage aside, what did Barbatos actually do with the timeline?” 

“None of us know how Barbatos’ abilities really work either,” Mammon states. “He’s kept that ace under his sleeve for thousands of years now.”

Beel shakes his head. “Besides that, did he actually collapse the two timelines or did he make a new one?”

Mammon stops pacing to look directly at Beel. “What do you mean?” 

“We saw her die,” Beel replies and ignores how several of his brothers grimace at the reminder. “She doesn’t talk about it, but she remembers what happened in the other timeline. What Belphie said is proof of that. But the version of her that was from that timeline died, right? So how does the version of her from our timeline still know what happened in the other?” 

The room is silent before Asmo speaks up. “Do you think Barbatos’ pulled a little switcheroo?” 

“The hell do ya mean by that?” Mammon asks. 

“Beel’s right, her double had to come from somewhere,” Asmo explains. “And she very much did die. We watched her soul as she expired, then the second of her appeared and the dead one merged with her living version. At leasts that's what happened according to Barbatos. If he didn’t just rewind time for her to bring her back from the point in time of her death, then the question is: which one of her was the one from this timeline and the one from the other?”

Satan’s eyes narrow. “You don’t think she’s ours?” 

“That’s ridiculous!” Mammon scoffs. But Satan shakes his head.

“She remembers everything from a timeline we know nothing about and that Barbatos says doesn’t exist anymore. But logically it has to still exist in order for her to have those memories and for her to have jumped through time.”

“So you think I killed our timeline’s version of her and Barbatos kept the other one?” Belphie asks, trying to follow along.

“This whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” Mammon says. Instinctively, his hand goes to his head. He feels like he wants to pull his hair out. “It’s a damned mess.” 

“It is, but if she is the other timeline’s then it would explain why she remembers events that haven't happened here in this one.” Satan replies.

“We’re getting off track again,” Belphie says with a shake of his head. “Regardless of which timeline she is or isn’t from, what are we going to do about her being attacked by something that can obscure itself from sight?”

“We’ll get answers to that tomorrow,” Mammon states.

“What if she has to go back again?” Beel asks. They all look to him uncomfortably.

“What do you mean? Back where?” Mammon asks. 

Beel wrings his hands together. “To the other timeline. What if -” 

Mammon snaps before he can finish. “Not happening. She’s not going anywhere. Diavolo and Barbatos will have answers tomorrow and she’ll be fine.” 

They sit with the answer, each of them wanting to believe it. Asmo is the one to break the silence with a sigh, standing up from the couch.

“No point in worrying and speculating about things that might not happen. It’s bad for the skin, after all.”

Mammon nods. “We should get whatever sleep we have left tonight. She’s not going anywhere, so there’s no point in worrying about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the support and comments so far! I appreciate all the interaction and feedback!


	7. Chapter 7

After being told to lie down she snuggles down into the silky soft sheets of Lucifer’s bed. She’s too tired at this unholy hour of the morning to really put up much of a resistance, even if she wanted to. She also knows that it’s a battle of wills that Lucifer will undoubtedly win. This is for her safety and she knows he will not give an inch.

Lucifer, instead of getting in the bed with her, takes a seat at the desk in his room. It’s situated in such a way that he overlooks the room, including her and the door. Shuffling through the stack of papers he pulls out some form and he gets to work. 

As tired as she is, something about him picking up work at this hour doesn’t sit well with her. “You’re not going back to sleep?” she asks. It seems rather unfair. It feels like she’s kicked him out of his bed when he was the one who brought her here. 

“No,” he says and doesn’t bother to look up from whatever it is he’s reading. She’s about to open her mouth to say something more, but he’s quick to stop her before she starts. “You should get as much sleep as you still can. We will be meeting with Lord Diavolo rather early.” 

She knows enough to know that this is his way of nicely telling her to do as she’s told. With a long exhale she closes her eyes and tries to get back to sleep. She listens to the scratching of Lucifer’s fountain pen for a handful of minutes before she does slip into sleep.

Lucifer knows she is asleep as soon as he hears her breathing even out. He had expected her to put up more of a resistance, but she has been rather compliant these last few days. A behavior change that even he might call a small blessing. 

Since stepping foot in the Devildom this human has been wholly resistant to obeying his suggestions and rules. From deliberate actions such as going up the stairs to the attic, to verbal disagreements about her behavior. At first it had infuriated him, how dare a mere human disobey him and challenge him in such a way? They are human and he is the first-born demon lord, they should do as they’re told. 

But no, she couldn’t just simply do what he told her and wait for the year to end. Instead her particular brand of choices resulted in her being attacked and threatened by his family on more than one occasion. Yet he watched as slowly she collected her pacts and his brothers felt more and more infatuated with her. He knew every act of her defiance had been for his family.

He watched first in amusement as she made a pact with Mammon, but that quickly gave way to frustration as she began to make pacts with each of his brothers. But never just for the reason of annoying him, as her pact with Satan proved. 

Perhaps that was why she had started to grow on him too.

He put his pen down and watched her sleep. Her attack had been concerning, but the second attempt at getting to her while under his roof was unlike anything he could recall in recent memory. 

How could he tear into someone that he - Lucifer, Morning Star, and Avatar of Pride - could not see? How could he make an example of their destruction for the absolute nerve of crossing him and endangering his lord’s reputation if he couldn’t get his hands on the slippery demon.

As much as he hated to say it, he had no idea what he was dealing with. A demon who could avoid his sight? He’d never heard or encountered such a thing.

Lord Diavolo said he would have answers in the morning and that was enough to help keep his emotions in check. It was enough for him to keep the simmering need to hunt the being down at bay. He sat back in his chair and kept vigil through the remainder of the night.

* * *

They walked to Lord Diavolo’s castle in a group. Mammon and Beel flanked each of her sides. Satan and Lucifer walked ahead of her while Asmo, Belphie, and Levi brought up the rear. 

It was still the early hours of the morning and quite a few hours before the first bell at RAD. 

Barbatos greeted them at the door, ushering them in and directing them to the dining room where Lord Diavolo already sat waiting. Lucifer took the seat to Lord Diavolo’s right and she took the seat next to him. Mammon took the remaining empty seat next to her and the others took their seats as well. 

An array of breakfast pastries was laid before them. Barbatos took the time to quickly get cups of tea and coffee poured among them too. Beel was the only one who ate. She sat with a steaming mug in her hands that was going mostly untouched.

Lord Diavolo leaned back in his chair and turned his golden eyes onto her. “I should start with an apology to you. Your safety during your stay here is my responsibility.” 

“You don’t need to apologize, Lord Diavolo,” she replied. “You’ve done a lot to keep me protected during my stay here.”

“I appreciate that, however I do still need to issue you an apology.” Diavolo stated. 

“Do you know what has been attacking her?” Satan asked. His own search for answers had turned up nothing. His need to know was slightly more overpowering than his need to keep up appearances.

Diavolo and Barbatos exchanged a look. Barbatos nodded and turned his attention to the table. “To begin, you must understand that time is not entirely linear with direct causes and effects.” His eyes met each of them as he spoke, his white gloved hand came to rest under his chin as he stood. “Every action - or inaction - creates a multitude of possibilities. As such, time branches off in a new direction with each potential possibility: one where it happens and one where it does not.” 

She nodded along following his explanation so far. It was simple enough the way he described it. “The trouble starts when time is warped. Now, the timeline can correct itself in most instances; however, too many warps and changes can put too much...stress, we’ll call it, on the stability of time.” Barbatos continued. 

“What exactly do you mean by warp?” Beel asked around a mouthful of danish. 

“A warp in time is when a string - or several - of time are cut, resulting in their abrupt end and a change in their intended direction.” Barbatos explained. “Time warps can happen in all different kinds of ways. A more active example is someone being sent directly back in time, whereas a more passive way is someone - such as myself - stating an action to avoid and thus reshaping a small moment in time. Moments like those are easier for the wider web of time to overlook and correct.”

“So what happens if something bigger is involved in a time warp?” she asks, finding herself already guessing at his answer. 

Barbatos turned his green-blue eyes on her. “There are events that are considered larger in the scale of time. Pivotal moments that multiple timelines sometimes converge onto, making them almost inevitable. When one of these events is altered or diverted, sometimes the timeline has a harder time reshaping itself. More often than not it tries to reincorporate the event into another point in the timeline.”

“And if it can’t?” Mammon asks.

“Then all of that potential energy and focus gets transformed into a physical form.” Barbatos answers. “A being whose entire existence is dedicated to bringing about the events that result in the timeline resetting back to the larger event.” 

“Hold on, you’re telling me that time itself just creates shadowy things that can avoid being seen to carry out some strange mission?” Mammon gapes. Beside her she can see Lucifer’s brow dip into the slightest scowl.

“It is an unfortunate compromise between my power and your father’s.” Barbatos states. Each of the brother’s bristles at the mention of their celestial creator.

She looks to Diavolo’s face to find it utterly unreadable. However, something was beginning to dawn on her. “So what was the part that I altered when I went back in time?” She asks.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to isolate those threads out completely. But at some point in your travel through my room, you tangled - or diverted - some thread of time that led to a major event and the timeline seems to think that you are the source of untangling it.”

“Such as my murdering her,” Belphie states, voicing her own unspoken thought. But as all eyes at the table turn to the youngest brother, Belphie continues. “Why else would it be intent on killing her now?”

“Unfortunately, that has been our thought on the matter as well.” Lord Diavolo confirms.

Mammon’s hand comes down on the table hard, making her jump. “Behave yourself!” Lucifer hisses.

“No! Absolutely not!” Mammon argues. “We’re supposed to be here to find out how to keep her safe, and you’re saying that she needs to die for time to right itself?!” 

“No,” Lord Diavolo replies calmly. “We are instead considering the possibility that another visit through the past may cross different timeline paths that would fix the current issue.”

‘And this is why he apologized,’ she realizes. “So how far back do I need to go?”

Before either Diavolo or Barbatos can reply, Mammon is talking again. “It’s been almost two months though! Why would it be coming after her now?”

If Barbatos minds the outburst, he doesn’t show it. “Time is not linear. It does not have a concept of how much time is between events; nor an understanding of the reason for the diversion. It only cares that certain events come to pass.”

“So, how far back will I have to go?” she repeats. 

“I’ll be sending you back to a point in the other timeline in between where you stepped foot in this one and everyone awaiting your return.” Barbatos replies. “Hopefully that will be enough for the timeline to consider itself corrected.” 

“And if it doesn’t?”

Barbatos grimaced slightly. “Then you’ll have to go back further.” 

She sits for a moment and begins to realize exactly what he is asking of her. 

The last time she walked into the past, it was only a few hours of time. Now, however, she’ll have to go back weeks or possibly even more. The last several weeks of bonding with Belphie and mending family relations will be entirely rewritten.

“Why?” Mammon asks, voice raising in pitch only slightly. She remembers the first time she had to go through one of Barbatos’ doors and how he had protested then too. He is her first, her protector, and the idea of her going where he cannot follow does not sit well with him.

“Unfortunately, if we don’t then that shade of time will only keep attacking until it eventually succeeds.” Diavolo states. ‘Until it kills me,’ she thinks, hearing his unspoken point.

They sit at the table in resigned silence. Each of her demons looks at her and she can tell that they’re probably thinking the same thing. This is a loss of everything they’ve been through since Belphie’s release.

“This isn’t fair,” Levi grumbles.


	8. Chapter 8

They stand outside Barbatos’ room. He is giving her a moment to make peace with the loss of this timeline, the one she’s settled into. While she knows that he said that this timeline will fade into obscurity within the grander scheme of time, she knows that it won’t completely disappear as he would’ve had her believe the last time she warped time.

Everything that happened these last two months did happen. The moments and emotions: they happened and they mattered. 

She’ll have to do it all again or watch how it all changes. The idea of her relationships with each of them changing from what they’ve settled into worries her. What if Belphie never stops hating her?

She hugs Mammon first, seeing the obvious pain in his eyes. “Don’t worry,” she tells him, “I’ll be seeing you again real soon.” Mammon forces a small smile for her. She’ll be seeing another version of him. He is Greed and he wants all of her for himself: specifically this version of himself. He didn’t know he could be envious of himself.

“Alright, listen, when you get there and if you still have all your Mononoke Land goods then you have to help me grind to catch up to you!” Levi states. “I can’t have you be so far ahead of me, it’s not fair.” 

“Of course, I’ll even send over the rare spirits that haven’t dropped yet.” She says with a smile, reading through his obvious discomfort and attempt at burying his feelings.

She hugs Beel, Satan, and Asmo too. She stands in front of Lucifer awkwardly. She’s always been affectionate with the demons she holds pacts with: hugs and leaning on one another during movies. But the oldest of them has not interacted in such a way. So she stands awkwardly fidgeting with her hands at her side unsure of what to do exactly.

She’s sure it would wound his pride if she were to hug him in front of everyone. Especially in front of Diavolo. 

He surprises her, pulling her into a hug and waiting for her to respond by hugging him back.

“I’ll try not to be such a headache for you this time around,” she says just loud enough for him to hear. She feels more than hears his laughter as he pulls away. The smile still shines in his eyes while his mask starts to fall back into place.

Then, finally, she’s standing in front of Belphegor. “It still feels unfair, I didn’t get nearly as much time with you.” he says. 

“Well, we’ll get another chance,” she says. “And I’ll have had this extra two months, so it’s not nothing.” 

He fakes a small smile for her. His hand coming up to her neck, his finger brushing along his mark. “Will she keep the pact?” he asks Barbatos. 

“It should hold, as the other five did when she changed over to this timeline.” He states. 

Belphie nods. “Good,” his hand falls away from her. “Use it if you have to. Don’t let me kill you again. No matter how much the other me will hate you for it, I don’t want you dead.” 

“I won’t let you make the same mistake twice,” she tells him. 

Then she’s walking into Barbatos room, leaving them all behind again. 

“Do you remember the rules I told you last time?” Barbatos asks when the door is closed behind them. She recites the rules and he smiles at her. “Good. Now the rules about not interacting with anyone isn’t going to apply to you, but you still can’t go around telling people you’re from another timeline. At least no one outside the House of Lamentation, Lord Diavolo, and myself. Do you understand?”

“I do,” she says. 

“Good. We’re trying to trick the timeline, so I’ll be inserting you at a point where things have gone a little differently.” Barbatos states while walking down a set of stairs. Walking past a series of doors that hand on the wall in an array of angles. She keeps up, following closely behind. The room makes her feel dizzy, like an M.C. Escher drawing.

Barbatos stops at a door, one that looks similar to his own bedroom door. His hand pauses on the handle. “One final thing: your pact with Belphegor will hold, however it will be weaker in this new timeline. It’ll still stop him if he attacks you, but you’ll have to get him to reaffirm it with you to bring it back to what it is right now.”

She nods, “Okay, that makes sense.” He might still hate her in the other timeline. Will he view it as being subservient? How will she rebuild his trust if that’s the case? ‘Questions for another time,’ she thinks. “When you said that things will have gone differently in the other timeline, do you mean that I’m already dead?” she asks.

“Yes,” Barbatos states. “Hopefully this is the event the timeline hasn’t been able to get past. By inserting you within a point where your death has happened, hopefully that will be enough to offset the issue.” 

“Okay,” she says. Remembering the difficulty of the last time the brothers were gathered around her dying form, she hopes that this will be easier than that time.

“Ready?” Barbatos asks. She nods. “Then safe travels,” he says and opens the door.

* * *

When she stumbles through the door and back into Barbatos room, she almost expects to see the butler there waiting for her. Instead she’s alone in the room of twisting staircases and doors. She knows which one leads back out into the hallway though. Quickly she retraces her steps, running back up the stairs and looking for a nearly identical door to the one she just ran through. 

Entering the hall outside Barbatos’ room, she pauses. ‘Where am I supposed to go?’ she wonders. This is the other timeline, the one they were supposed to be waiting on her return from the past.

‘But I died,’ she thinks. ‘Or they think that I’m dead.’

So she takes off, running towards the dungeons. Where else would Belphie still be if they found her corpse? Skidding into the long hall of cells, she finds that she is alone. She runs past each cell, looking for the one with Belphie. 

But he’s nowhere to be found.

‘Shit,’ she thinks as she runs out of the dungeons. ‘How long was I gone? Did I even come back to the right time? Did I screw up Barbatos’ intended timeframe?’ The anxiety starts the build the longer she is alone.

She enters the foyer of Lord Diavolo’s castle to find them all grouped together. Belphie is tied up in magical chains again at Barbatos side. It’s his eye that she catches first, his jaw dropping.

“Impossible,” Belphie says. Whatever conversation Lucifer and Lord Diavolo are having ends abruptly. Everyone looks at her - time seeming to freeze in a moment of stunned silence. 

Barbatos stares at her with glowing green-blue eyes. “You can’t be here,” his voice full of disbelief. It should worry her that the watcher of time himself didn’t see this coming. Especially when he’s the one who sent her back. 

Mammon looks like he wants to run to her side. Like he needs to reach out and touch her to make sure she is real. But he stays rooted to the spot, blue eyes widely staring at her.

“How long have I -” She starts to ask before Lucifer interrupts.

“We found your body in the attic,” he states with utter confusion. “You can’t possibly be here.”

So that’s what had happened. “It’s complicated,” she says, looking to Barbatos to supply his own answer. Though he appears to be lost looking through time.

Belphie barks a harsh laugh and shakes his head. “Humans really are like cockroaches: quite difficult to exterminate.” 

“Nope,” she says before the others can respond with their own rising anger. She can feel the shift of power rise in the air. “Just me. I’m annoying like that.” She walks across the room, closing the gap between them all.

Barbatos eyes stop glowing the ever shifting blue and green and she watches as he shares a look with Lord Diavolo. 

“You shouldn’t be _here_ ,” Barbatos says, eyeing her up and down as though trying to puzzle something out. 

Her stomach plummets. Somehow, someway, she’s ended up in the wrong place - the wrong timeline - _again_.


	9. Chapter 9

She blinks at Lord Diavolo, unsure if she’s heard him correctly. “What?” 

Despite the glare that Lucifer levels her with, Diavolo doesn’t seem bothered at her question. “I said, we’ll be keeping Belphegor locked up until the exchange is over then.”

There is a rustle of metal on metal; funny given that Belphie’s chains are magical in nature and not physically real chains. 

“Why,” she asks. “I did what you told me to, I found out how Belphie escaped the attic.”

Diavolo shakes his head, silencing her. “Yes, but it resulted in your death. Given the circumstances that this is a second chance after having Barbatos switch you with the other timeline; I don’t want to give him an opportunity for a repeat offence.” 

The cold, clammy hands of panic begin to tighten their grasp within her chest. Is Belphie going to be punished? Is he going to be sentenced for treason? No, no she can’t let that happen. “I’m still alive though, so technically he hasn’t committed the crime of defying your law.” 

Belphie laughs a dry, hollow sound. “You can’t be serious. Are you actually trying to find a loophole here? We’re demons, you actually think you can get your way?” 

“I’ve been paying attention in class,” she shoots back. His eyes widen at her before narrowing into a glare.

The sound of her name has her looking over at Mammon. “You didn’t see what he did to you.”

Is that what the issue is, she wonders. It’s not a card she wants to use, especially because she knows it will hurt her demons - especially Mammon - but if it helps then it might be the best solution.

“It’s not the first time he’s killed me,” she states as all eyes widen at her. It’s a weird thing to admit, just as it feels weird to say aloud. “He killed me in the other timeline too. He crushed my throat and rib cage, then tossed me down the stairs of the House of Lamentation.” Mammon makes an injured sort of noise, but Belphie listens to her description of her death at his hand with something like pride on his face. 

“That’s all the more reason to keep him locked up until the end of the program.” Lord Diavolo states. 

She shakes her head, “No, you don’t understand, I forgave him in that timeline too. We worked it out and actually became friends.” 

Belphie laughs, a loud and dark kind of laughter. The hairs on the back of her neck rise at the sound. It almost takes her back to that day in the attic. “You really are an idiot! Friends? You really think I would ever be friends with you!” 

“That’s enough,” Lucifer says calmly. Though the red glint in his eyes betrays the conflicting storm within him. 

“We were friends,” she repeats. “We even made a pact.” The smirk falls from Belphie’s face as everyone else looks at her absolutely bewildered. She turns around, holding her hair up to reveal her neck to them. 

“Holy shit,” she hears Levi utter at the sight of Belphie’s purple mark on her skin. 

“No,” Belphie says quietly, like he’s horrified at the thought. “No! I never would’ve made a pact with you! A mere human! Absolutely not!” His voice rises rapidly as he shouts, and she turns around to see that his eyes and the chains around him are glowing. 

“You made it willingly,” she tells him. “No one forced you.” 

“Lies!” He shouts. 

She looks at Lucifer, “Did you have a chance to tell him about Lilith yet?” She knows that this timeline is at least similar to the first one she left. How she was given the opportunity to go back in time to discover how Belphie escaped. She assumes it’s safe to think that Lucifer had the Lilith conversation with them while Belphie was imprisoned at Diavolo’s castle. 

“No,” Lucifer says. “I didn’t find the right time to bring it up. We waited for you all night and when you didn’t come back, we went to the House to check up on you. That’s when we found your...” He waves his hand, the gesture filling in the unspoken blanks for her. 

“Right,” she says. Then looking back at Belphie she begins to explain, “So your sister Lilith -”

“You don’t get to speak her name, human!” Belphegor snaps at her. The chains glow brighter.

“Listen, Lilith ended up living the rest of her life as a human. She lived a happy and full life, she didn’t die during the Celestial War.”

“Liar! I’m sure that’s exactly what you’d like for me to believe!” Belphegor snarls. 

“Belphie, it’s the truth.” Beel says. 

“She," Belphie shouts and points with his chained wrists,"- a mere, lowly, disgusting human - doesn’t have the right to say our sister’s name!” She can see little wisps of smoke rising from the chains around his wrists now.

“About that,” she says as Belphegor looks at her as though his glare alone would melt her. “I’m also proof that her time in the human world wasn’t for nothing. She lived a happy and full life and left the legacy of my family tree.” 

Belphegor snarls, shouts something in Infernal at her. She holds her ground, blinking at him as he struggles within his bindings. It’s not the Belphie she’s gotten to know over the last two months. ‘We can get there again though,’ she hopes. 

“How do you know that?” Lucifer asks her. His eyes a little wide at the implication that she is related to his sister somehow. 

She looks back over to the oldest. Her eyes meeting his red gaze. “Lord Diavolo confirmed it in the other timeline. I’m a - although very distant - descendant of Lilith.” 

“Oh for f-- _really_?” Belphie shouts, his horns blinking in and out of his form. “Of the billions of human vermin in that realm, you want me to believe that _you_ picked the one that’s a descendant of Lilith's?” His glare darts from her, to Lord Diavolo, and then to Lucifer. Almost daring one of them to tell him otherwise; or worse, confirm it.

“Belphie,” Beel says but his twin rounds on him, snarling.

“No! Absolutely not! You all might’ve fallen for her charms, but I refuse!” Belphegor snaps. The smoke from his chains has increased, a terrible burning smell invading the air around them. “There’s no way! You actually expect me to believe such a convenient lie? That you’re our sister’s descendant? You wish you were graced with an ounce of Lilith’s being in your veins, human!” 

She hears the ruffling of feathers beside her. The tips of black feathers are in her peripheral, but she does not look away from Belphie. Some warning bell in the back of her head insists that she not take her eyes away from him.

“That is quite enough,” Lucifer states. Though his words are calm there is a power laced within the undertones. 

“No!” Belphie shouts, voice ringing in the room in an unnatural echo. 

That is the moment the chains break. Shattering into a million little glittering pieces of magic that dissipate into thin air. 

She blinks and Belphegor in his full demon form is before her. Angry purple genergy radiating off of his form. The last time she saw him like this, he was standing in the middle of her bedroom fighting her attacker. 

Now though - 

Belphie has his clawed hands around her throat and time seems to slow impossibly. She watches as the room stirs in panic, the other brothers jerking forward like they’re reaching for their youngest brother. Like they’re reaching out to reach her.

Face to face in front of Belphegor’s fury again, she stares wide eyed. ‘No,’ she thinks. ‘Not again.’ 

Digging deep within herself she searches for that thing she called upon when she called out for Mammon. That little sliver of magic that is within her pacts. “Let go and stop!” she snaps at Belphie. 

In the blink of an eye, his hand has recoiled and it looks like he’s been shoved back from her. Though no one has laid a hand on him. 

Everyone else in the room freezes, except for Lucifer; whose hand lands on Belphegor’s shoulder. Belphie still looks furious. 

Holding her neck, with Mammon now at her side and anxiously checking to see that she’s not hurt, she says: “The other you made me promise not to let you repeat the same mistake twice.” 

“I will not be subservient to you!” Belphegor snarls, eyes aglow. If this had been the other timeline, she would’ve said something about not keeping him in a pact he does not want. She wouldn’t keep any of the demon brothers tied to her if they didn’t want it. 

But right now, with Belphie standing in front of her with murderous intent and the pact being the only thing keeping her protected, she does not offer to dismiss it. Even though it is weaker than it was a day before.

“You’re not and never will be.” She tells him, meeting his glowing gaze. “But I will not just let you kill me again.”

* * *

Back at the house, she is laying down in her bed with Mammon wrapped around her. His back is to the door and hers is to the wall. 

Belphegor wasn’t at dinner. Beel apparently took dinner to him in their room. But since coming back to the house he has refused to come out of his own room. She guesses it’s better than the attic and the cell in Lord Diavolo’s castle.

The only reason he had been allowed back at the house and not locked up in the dungeons was her pact.

Despite Belphie not leaving his room, each of the brothers had apparently decided that she would not be left alone. They would not give Belphie an opportunity to test the strength of the pact again.

Of course she knows that she’ll have to live through a couple of awkward weeks as she helps them rebuild their relationships again. However, she’s not sure if she’ll actually get the opportunity this time. 

The first time she helped Belphie fit back in with his family, he was done attempting to murder her. This time around Belphie clearly resents her, the pact, and everything she’s told him about his sister. It had worked last time, but it seems like the Lilith card isn’t going to work twice. 

Is that why Barbatos switched her into that time line to start with? Because he knew the Belphegor there would take the news of her distant relationship with Lilith better?

She wonders if she’ll have to worry about her relationship with the youngest becoming similar to that of Satan and Lucifer. Will Belphie send her cused letters and poison her morning coffee? 

“Go to sleep,” Mammon whispers, startling her out of her thoughts.

“Sorry. Just, uh, a lot on my mind.” she replies. 

His grip around her tightens just a little bit, pulling her closer. “I won’t let him hurt you,” he says. A tiny growl just under his words. 

She exhales deeply and snuggles closer into his chest. “I know. Either you’re the one to save me or I’m supposed to die, right?” she says. She had meant for it to be lighthearted, but the way Mammon freezes and inhales a sharp breath has her quickly backpedaling. “Shit, I didn’t mean -” 

“I know you didn’t,” Mammon replies, but she can hear the edge of sadness lining his words. “Did you…” he trails off, licks his lips and tries again. “Did you feel it?” 

“Dying?” she asks and Mammon shakes his head. “In the other timeline I did. Barbatos said it had something to do with merging the two timelines, but now I know they didn’t merge so I’m not really sure why I remember. I mean, he has power over temporal displacement, so I guess it makes about as much sense as anything.” 

“Was it bad?” He asks then sputters a bit. “In - In the other timeline, I mean. Was it...bad?” 

She won’t lie to him. “I wasn’t good, but not really bad either. I lost consciousness after a point. When I woke up again I was already down the stairs and you were there. I couldn’t really feel anything. You made it better before I….well, I came back right after.” 

So close to his chest she can hear him swallow, taking in the information. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Mammon, you don’t have to apologize.” She hugs him a little tighter too. She’s not looking at his eyes, but she knows that if she were he would be crying. 

She waits as Mammon breathes for a few minutes. She waits as he collects himself. “When we found you - in the attic, before you showed up in the hall - it...it looked so bad.” He tells her.

“I’m okay,” she tells him.

“I thought he made you suffer,” Mammon replies, keeping his voice even.

“I’m okay, Mammon.” she repeats and runs her fingers through his hair in a soothing motion. “I’m okay. I’m here.”

“I don’t ever want to see you like that again,” he says.

“You won’t,” she assures him.

* * *

Two days pass in a bit of a blur. Belphegor is not at breakfast and he does not join them at dinner. Beel is at neither meal over the two days too. Everyone sits through meals awkwardly, no body daring to ask where the twins are. 

The school hours at RAD drag on. She’s sat through these lectures before, she completes her tasks for the day quickly. She has an escort at every hour, from the moment she leaves her bedroom in the morning till the time she returns to it at night. Mammon sleeps with her both nights.

For two days she does not see the white-eyed shade or feel like the shadows are watching her. 

It’s nice, but the atmosphere in the House is strained worse than the last time Belphie came out of the attic. Lucifer practically locks himself away in his study. Well, more than he usually does at least.

Levi brings his games into her room on the third night in order to spend time with her in the sanctuary of her room. He flips between his controller and his D.D.D. Resetting timers for drops in Mononoke Land.

She spends time helping him grind levels. Until she gets up from her spot and stretches. “I’m going to run to the kitchen for snacks, do either of you want anything?” 

Mammon is quick to reply, “Nope, but I’ll go with you!”

“The kitchen is literally right next door,” she tells him. “I’ll leave the door open and I’ll be right back. No need to jump up, I’ll only be a minute.” She says, waving him off as he starts to sit back down on her bed. 

The moments of solitary afforded by bathroom breaks has not been enough. Her demons have always been clingy, and she has loved the attention, but even she sometimes needs a moment to breathe.

She rounds the hall and enters the kitchen to see Beel. The first time she’s seen him outside of RAD in two days. 

“Hey,” Beel says, a little awkward as his eyes quickly dart away from her. He’s stirring something in a large pot. 

“Hi Beel,” she says, going to the fridge. “How’ve you been?” 

“Fine,” he replies, tapping the spoon on the edge of the pot. He watches whatever's cooking inside it. 

“A watched pot never boils, you know,” she says as she reaches for a can of soda. She closes the fridge and turns around and sees that Beel is still refusing to look at her. “Beel? Are you okay?” 

“What?” he says after a moment. “Yeah. I’m fine.” 

“You know you can talk to me if you want to, I’ll listen.” she offers. The way he shies away reminds her of those first few days where Beel felt nothing but guilt for not realizing that his twin was a staircase away. It probably hasn’t helped that he’s been holed up with Belphie in their room either.

“Yeah.” Beel finally says. “Thanks.” He picks the spoon back up and stirs the contents of the pot again. Probably soup she realizes. He’s probably only stirring it again to give his hands something to do too, she also realizes.

She heads back across the kitchen to the hallway. “I’m hanging out in my room tonight. Call or drop by if you need anything, okay Beel?” she says. 

Beel nods. “Yeah sure.” 

She leaves him to finish making soup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came out fast, so I'm posting it now instead of next week! Thanks again to everyone who has left comments! I love hearing your thoughts and theories! I also really appreciate you taking the time to comment!


	10. Chapter 10

It doesn’t get any easier. The days with Beel and Belphie missing from the table at meal times turns into a week. Mammon becomes practically glued to her hip, well more so than he was previously. In the few and far times that he is busy, pulled away from her side, one of the other brothers takes his place.

Asmo drapes himself around her shoulders as they walk the halls of RAD. He makes her take hallways that are an indirect path to her classes. She’s sure its because somewhere along the way Belphie needs to walk a similar route to his classes. It’s Asmo’s way of preventing them from crossing paths. 

Satan sits with her in the library and the common room, reading his own books as she works through homework. She knows his presence keeps Belphegor away from the two rooms when she is in them. Once she catches him emit a low growl, but when she looked up to the doorway, Belphie had already left. Who else would he growl like that at?

But she also knows Belphie’s preferred napping spots and, as a sort of compromise, chooses not to be in those rooms. She doesn’t go to the planetarium or the music room. Though Belphie might not know that she knows those are his favorites, she hopes it is a kind of peace offering for the very few times he comes out of his room. 

She’s sure that Beel has made gallons upon gallons of soup over the week. Since he’s skipping meal times, she’s not sure exactly what times he has been using the kitchen. She’s only caught him making soup twice during the week and that was late at night.

Though Mammon has barely left her side and Levi has brought his games into her room each night, she misses Beel’s company. It feels odd that their regular nightly group is mostly a trio again. 

However, truthfully, it’s weirder that the house is so divided and separate again.

‘These things take time,’ she reminds herself. This time she’s not really sure how to help breach the gap though.

It’s a week after she switches timelines that she has the first nightmare.

The dream starts like any other. Something nonsensical and riddled with dream-logic. But suddenly there is a clarity. Things sharpen into focus, become more detailed, and her thoughts seem to follow her own patterns instead of being led around by the dream. 

She immediately recognizes the sensation.

“Belphie?” she calls out, into the surroundings of the dream. 

“Well that’s annoying,” she hears his voice. But looking around she still can’t find him. “You shouldn’t be able to tell I’m here.” 

“I’m immune to Asmo’s charms and I always know when you’re inside my dreams,” she says, still looking. The scenery begins to change around her. The floor splits into a gaping chasm and she can see the dancing shadows of flames upon the walls of it from down below. 

“Interesting.” Belphegor’s voice echos. “You don’t seem bothered by the Devildom. Maybe you’d like a more traditional view of hell?”

She finds herself unable to move. “Where are you?” she calls out instead. 

She feels hands on her, clawed fingernails poking at her skin. “Behind you,” he says, whispering it in her ear. “You know, I can’t talk to you with my brothers busy playing bodyguard all the time. But then I thought, well, I can always get to you here in your dreams.” 

She watches as shadowy hands begin to rise out of the hole in the ground. Their long limbs reaching for her. 

She knows she didn’t show him the memory. If this is his guess at what will scare her, then its frighteningly accurate. 

“Then again,” Belphegor continues, “I don’t even need to let you wake up. Did you know I could make you sleep forever?” The threat is laced within his question as he steps around her to stand in front of her. The grabby hands from the pit snake around him as they close in on her.

It scares her. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t. Before she didn’t mind inviting Belphie into her dreams. Now though: now with a completely different Belphegor and one who still very much wants her dead, the idea is terrifying.

Here in the dream, although she is in her own head, this is Belphegor’s domain. She is very much at his mercy here and the pact will not save her.

“You’d just never wake up,” Belphegor says, clawed fingers running over her cheek. His hand forcing her to look at him. It’s an added bonus that he gets to delight in the fear in her eyes. “And I would get to keep you all to myself.” 

“Your brothers won’t let you,” she says before she can stop herself. But as soon as she finishes and her lips touch again, she feels something like glue seal them together. 

He hums, taking in her words. “True. Though that’s not what I’ve decided to do. No,” he shakes his head but his eyes stay fixed on her. She can feel the hands on her feet and working their way up her pant legs. “I think it’ll be more fun to keep coming back here. After all, you can’t kick me out once I’m in. And humans - being as weak as they are - can’t go too long without sleep. So you’ll come back to me eventually even if you try to stay awake.” 

She tries to talk, but her mouth doesn’t open. Belphegor smiles at her attempt. 

“The most fun part, however, is that you can’t use the pact on me here.” He chuckles darkly and she can feel hands pushing against her ribcage now. “And in order for you to attempt to order me in the waking world, well, you would have to be in the same room as me to do that.” 

“And no one will let you.” His clawed fingers press painfully into her face in the dream. “Tell my brothers about this and see what it gets you.” He threatens. 

Her alarm blares in her ears and she jolts forward in bed. Her breathing hard and she feels shaky: awful and restless. 

Mammon lazily paws at the nightstand, trying to hit snooze on the D.D.D. Her alarm turns off and Mammon buries his head under the pillows. She sits there, stuck between wanting to tell Mammon about Belphegor’s dream visit and remembering his threat. 

Her D.D.D. dings and she reaches over Mammon to pick it up. She almost pales at seeing Belphie on the text ID. She takes a deep breath, steels her nerves and then opens it.

**Belphegor (2)**

**07:00**

> **Belphie** : Hey
> 
> **Belphie** : Remember what I said about telling
> 
> **Belphie** : 

She sits with the phone in her hand, staring at the message. A part of her wants to text back that he can go fuck himself. Another part of her wants to shake Mammon awake and tell him everything. 

But another part of her, the part of her that knows that at one point in time Belphie and her were friends; that part of her wants to keep quiet. 

So instead she scrolls through her D.D.D. and sends over a dozen files. Pictures that feature the two of them and some of his other brothers. She sends three video clips: one that Beel took of the two of them napping, one that she took of the two of them working in Hell’s Kitchen, and a third taken of them goofing off with Mammon, Levi, and Beel in an empty RAD classroom.

She sends them all and waits. But a response doesn’t come. She isn’t sure if he’s ignoring her now - which is honestly the most likely scenario - or if he’s busy with getting ready for another day at RAD.

So she clicks the D.D.D. into sleep and starts to get out of bed herself.

* * *

The nightmares continue and they get worse.

The second night she falls forever in that terrible fiery chasm. Shadowy hands pulling her down, down, down into the depths all while Belphegor’s laughter echoes around her.

The third night he kills her: over, and over, and over again. He strangles her, crushes her ribcage, and snaps her spine. Each time she blinks and it starts all over again. 

“You know,” she manages to rasp with his hands around her throat, “you could just flip through some memories and see I’m telling you the truth.” 

While his clawed hands remain tight around her dream-self’s throat, he does take a moment to pause.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” he says with his eyes aglow. “Let’s take a walk down the worst of your memory lane.” 

The fourth night comes and she does not sleep. She knows she’s doing nothing but hurting herself, but it feels like she’s spiting Belphegor. Like she’s denying him access and whatever satisfaction he’s getting from her nightly torture.

She sends more pictures. She sends screenshots of text conversations that are still in her phone despite jumping into a new timeline. He doesn’t answer her, of course. 

She watches as the clock on her D.D.D. reads five in the morning and she debates meeting Beel in the gym. Mammon is such a heavy sleeper, she could slip out of bed. 

In the end, though, she doesn’t. 

Asmo fusses about the dark circles under her eyes that morning at breakfast. “I’m fine,” she tells him, waving off his concern. She doesn’t acknowledge the look that Lucifer gives her, trying to puzzle out what might be bothering her.

She naps where she can at RAD. She sleeps through a lecture she knows she’s sat though in the other timeline and naps at lunch. 

“Hey, human, why’re ya so tired today?” Mammon asks her after waking her before the bell. 

“I just am,” she replies with ease. “It happens sometimes.”

She tries not to sleep that night either. Nearly two days without sleep and her mind and body are screaming at her. She feels awful: her eyes burn, her muscles don’t feel as responsive, her thoughts are cloudy, and everything aches. She remembers the clock reading three in the morning before she finds herself succumbing to sleep. 

“Back again?” Belphegor greets as he enters her dream. So tired, it breaks her.

“Stop,” she says, begging. It’s no use as he twists her dream into a nightmare again. 

* * *

She pokes at a plate of scrambled cockatrice eggs at breakfast when Belphegor and Beel finally join them at the breakfast table. She’s too tired to pick up on the bristling of nerves the others give. Mammon scoots his chair almost aggressively close to her.

“Good morning,” Belphegor greets. His brothers return the greeting though it is tearse. When she finally looks up from her plate, she catches the tiniest smirk curling at his lips. “Hmm, the human doesn’t look so good. You should be a bit more careful about that. They get sick rather easily.” 

She knows it’s a barb aimed at them all. The way that Lucifer and Satan study her, she knows that they’re probably coming to the right conclusion themselves.

Whether this is a dare or some other power play, she doesn’t care. Almost two weeks ago now, she still remembers what the other Belphie - her Belphie - told her: “Use it if you have to. Don’t let me kill you again. No matter how much the other me will hate you for it, I don’t want you dead.”

So she pulls on the power of the pact when she says, “I forbid you from entering my dreams, Belphegor.” 

Oh the way he smiles when the others finally realize what’s been going on.

* * *

Seated at his desk Lucifer asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?” They’re both in his private study.

“I’m too tired to make up a good excuse,” she replies. From the way he looks at her she knows that he can tell just how exhausted she really is. “I thought I could handle it. He threatened to make it worse if I said anything. The lack of sleep messed with my judgment. Take your pick.”

They stare at each other for a few minutes. The silence stretches between them awkwardly. She watches Lucifer part his lips, probably to say something, but then she’s spilling her guts. “I thought I could - He was my friend in the other timeline. I thought I could change his mind. I thought if I just had a chance to talk to him and explain it, I could - But I don’t think I can and I don’t know if we’ll ever be friends again and that...” She pauses to suck down a breath. She drifts for a minute, trying to puzzle out the storm of emotion within. 

It’s more than she really wanted to say. But the words fell out of her mouth so quickly. When Lucifer hands her a tissue, she realizes she’s crying. 

“It’s frustrating,” she tells him. “It’s frustrating and sad because I lost a friend and it’s like it never happened now.”

“I’ll make it clear that he’s not to interfere in your dreams again.” Lucifer says as she collects herself. He watches as she wipes away her tears. “Your pact isn’t very strong here on account that he hasn’t made it with you at this time. It’ll save you in the moment if he attacks you. But your command to stay out of your dreams won’t hold permanently like a true pact command would. It’ll begin to deteriorate. Honestly, I’d give it maybe a day before he’s free of it.”

She nods at the information. He continues at her sign of acknowledgement. “You’ve done more for my family than anyone has cared to in nearly millenia. What you’ve done is no easy task. But this is not something you can fix. Please, just let it be.” 

His unspoken request is clear to her though: Don’t let him find her dead again like he did in this timeline.

* * *

  
Asmo comes to her that night with a basket of skincare products. 

“Dear, your skin could use some TLC.” he tells her as he takes over her bathroom. He motions for her to sit on the counter. So she hops up, her legs dangling over the sides as Asmo puts the basket down and starts to sort through the bottles and jars. 

He looks at her under the bathroom lights and clicks his tongue, “Nightmares will wreak havoc on your skin.” He pulls out a tiny pot of eye cream, dabbing it under her eyes. She lets him fuss over her. 

She lets him whisper sweet nothings as he pampers and attempts to soothe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, credit to Tumblr user lilli-chae for isolating all of the Obey Me chat emojis.
> 
> Going back in time and trying to make friends all over again can be a little awkward, huh? Especially if that person still hates your guts in this timeline. 
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback and comments so far! Everyone's thoughts and theories make my day!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, credit to Tumblr user lilli-chae for isolating all of the Obey Me chat emojis and allowing me to include them in this fic.

Three days pass and Belphegor does not come to her in her dreams again. Exhaustion forces her to sleep, but it doesn’t stop her from hesitating each night.

Mammon has to wrap his arms around her. “Go to sleep,” he whispers. “He won’t be there.”

His assurances prove correct, but still she struggles for those first few moments each night before sleep finally finds her. Since arriving back in this timeline, Mammon has become a security blanket. His role as such only growing after the nightmares was revealed to them all.

Yet things fall into a routine again. Beel and Belphegor join them at the table for meals, but it is a strained kind of acceptance of the youngest’s presence at the table. Small talk is forced between them all. She tries not to meet his eyes. 

When she does, she always catches him smirking at her. 

Sometimes Beel attempts to join her for evening hangouts in her room. He stays for an hour or two, but a few messages from his D.D.D. has him leaving again.

“Sorry,” he tells her sheepishly as he gets up to leave.

“You don’t have to apologize to me for anything,” she tells him. He doesn’t owe her an apology. He hasn’t done anything wrong.

It doesn’t stop either of them from feeling a little sad at his early departure for the night.

It’s better than his complete isolation from her and the rest of his family. She does not - and will never - make him choose between herself and his twin. How could she? Belphegor might make his twin choose, but she won’t be responsible for making Beel feel that way.

* * *

She is reading with Satan in the evening after RAD when she realizes what she’s using as a bookmark: The scrap of notebook paper with her estimated journey through time the first time Barbatos introduced her to his powers. Looking at the complicated lines she had mapped out, she wonders what she would have to do to amend it to reflect current events. How would she draw her jump into a new timeline? Would it be a branching path or a dotted line? 

Though come to think of it, it is weird that her placement here wasn’t exactly expected. That Barbatos thought she would go to a different timeline instead of this one. 

Was she even supposed to step through the door and back into his room? That wasn’t how it worked the last time, when she had stumbled out of Mammon’s closet.

It also didn’t explain what had happened when she ended up in Lilith’s room that day. But maybe there are things she’s not meant to figure out.

Looking up from her book, he approaches a different topic with Satan. “Hey Satan, is there any way you can enchant something to prevent a person from dreaming?” she asks.

He growls something, low and angry in his chest before he says, “I thought Lucifer was very clear with Belphegor about -” 

“He’s stayed out,” she’s quick to state. At his look of surprise and then confusion, she clarifies: “I just thought it might help. For the future and just in case.” 

His green eyes soften. “The enchantment for that is easy enough.” he says. She watches as he pulls out his D.D.D. and types some message to someone. She doubts it’s Lucifer and she doesn’t ask. She keeps her nose out of whatever conversation he’s having. 

Moments later she gets her answer though when Asmo shows up with a handful of necklaces. “Why didn’t you say you wanted something like this earlier?” He asks Satan, walking into the room. He lights up when he spots her on the couch. “Oooh, what kind of fun are we getting up to? You know, my room might be better! It’s less cramped than -” 

“It’s for her, not me.” Satan clarifies. “And it’s to be enchanted.” He starts looking through a shelf, pausing a few times to read the spines and then moving on before he finds whatever tome it is he’s looking for. 

Asmo’s eyes light up. “Why didn’t you say you were in the market for a new necklace,” he beams. He sits down right next to her and begins holding up the jewelry in his hands near her. 

He holds a couple up, only to shake his head and quickly replace them. No doubt trying to find something to compliment her looks. “You could’ve said so sooner. We could’ve done some real shopping to find something perfect.” 

“It’s mostly for sleeping,” she tells him. If she weren’t looking at him, she would’ve missed the flash of pink that crossed his eyes. There and gone as quickly as it came.

“Even still, you should have something nice that suits you!” Asmo says. “You’d look rather lovely with a little scorpion charm.” 

She looks at the necklace dangling from his fingers near her face. On a golden chain is a little replica of the scorpion he wears with his demon form. Though it looks beautiful, it also looks pointy. Probably not the best for sleeping and Asmo seems to realize that too as he switches it for a chain with a tiny heart shaped pendant.

“Hearts are classic,” he says with a smile. 

It must be contagious because she smiles back. “It’s really pretty.” 

“Well, that settles that my dear!” he says handing the necklace over to her. 

“You’re sure it’s okay for me to keep?” she asks. 

“Absolutely,” Asmo replies. 

“Picked it out yet?” Satan asks with his back to them both. He’s currently laying something out on an end table, the book held open in his other hand. 

“Yes,” she says as she gets up to hand it to him. As she gets closer she can see that Satan is actually drawing in chalk on the surface of the table: copying some diagram out of the book. It’s rather mesmerizing to watch him work. 

When he holds his hand out expectantly she hands the necklace over. She watches him lay it out in the diagram, the chain following some specific path along the line he’s drawn. She listens to him begin to mutter words in Infernal. As he does, he places each of the fingers of his left hand on the end of a line within the diagram. Transfixed, she watches as little green sparks run up the lines of the chalk from his hand and into the necklace.

It’s over rather quickly though. He hands the necklace back to her and it has a newfound comfortable warmth within it. 

“I could watch you cast stuff like that forever. It’s so cool,” she says. She smiles a bit wider at the touch of a blush creeping across his cheeks.

“It’s nothing complex.” he says.

She unclasps the chain and begins to fasten it behind her neck. “It’s more than I can do. Thank you, Satan.” 

Behind them, Asmo watches in absolute delight.

* * *

She wakes up in the early hours of the morning. Her book isn’t in her lap and there’s a blanket over her. Looking around she can see that she fell asleep on Satan’s reading couch. 

She’s not sure what woke her, but she doesn’t recall dreaming. The thought makes her smile, touching the little heart charm that now dangles around her neck.

As much as she loves sleeping with Mammon, she knows he can’t be her security blanket forever. 

Checking her phone she sees that she’s missed several messages. ‘Speak, well, think of the devil,’ she thinks to herself as she unlocks her phone to view the messages.

**Mammoney (2)**

**00:12**

> **Mammoney** : Hey! Where’d you go? You’re not in your room.
> 
> **Mammoney** : Hey!
> 
> **Mammoney** : Don’t leave me hanging!
> 
> **Mammoney** : You’re not supposed to keep The Great Mammon waiting!
> 
> **Mammoney** : 

**01:30**

> **Mammoney** : Look at your phone!
> 
> **Mammoney** : Human, check your phone!
> 
> **Mammoney** : 
> 
> **Mammoney** : Are you asleep?

**02:00**

> **Mammoney** : Wake up and answer me!
> 
> **Mammoney** : 
> 
> **Mammoney** : 

Smiling to herself she types her response to him. 

**Mammoney (2)**

**03:42**

> **MC** : Sorry Mammon, I fell asleep reading in Satan’s room. I’ll see you at breakfast.
> 
> **MC** : 
> 
> **Mammoney** : Finally!
> 
> **Mammoney** : You’re not supposed to keep me waiting! 
> 
> **Mammoney** : I was worried about you!
> 
> **MC** : Sorry to worry you. I just fell asleep with my phone on silent.
> 
> **Mammoney** : Fine, I forgive you. Now get your human butt back to your room.
> 
> **MC** : You’re sleeping in my room even though I’m not there?
> 
> **Mammoney** : It’s where you’re supposed to be!
> 
> **Mammoney** : 
> 
> **MC** : 
> 
> **MC** : Fine, I’ll be right there. 

She gets up from her comfortable spot on the couch. Looking over she can see that Satan is asleep in his own bed. He’s sleeping with his sheets only though. 

Smiling lightly, she gets up and returns his blanket to him: draping it over his sleeping form. She’ll have to thank him in the morning.

As quietly as she can she tiptoes around the stacks of books to his door. Then she’s quietly slipping out into the hallway. Carefully as she can, she closes his door behind her. 

But, turning around, what greets her in the hallway startles her. Belphie is awake, standing at the end of the hall and staring down at her. 

Or at least she thinks he’s staring at her, because they’re not alone in the hall. Midway, standing in front of her door, is a familiar white-eyed shade. 

‘Impossible,’ she thinks. ‘Coming to this timeline was supposed to stop them from coming after me.’

Looking at Belphegor though, she suddenly fears she may be dreaming. But no, no she can’t be. She just woke up. Satan enchanted the necklace so that she wouldn’t have dreams when she sleeps. 

So she is awake. Awake and alone in a hallway with the two beings who want her dead the most.

Stepping back, reaching for Satan’s door, the shade closes the gap. It’s shadowy body looming in front of her, white eyes at her eye level. She freezes, consumed by momentary fear as it begins to reach its hand out to her. 

Looking down the hall momentarily, just past the shadowy-transparent form, she sees that Belphegor hasn’t moved. His eyes are fixed on her. Silent, but wide and watching. 

She feels the shadowy hand begin to reach around her throat and she screams. Ear piercing and with the only goal of waking up someone who will help her. 

Shadowy fingers tighten around her neck, restricting her access to air. She hears doors slam open in the hall. 

Her hands fly up to the shade’s fingers on her neck and she pulls futility. Now there’s shouting around her, footsteps coming, but it’s hard to think as she feels herself rise in the air. Her feet dangling in the shade’s hold as her air starts to cut off.

Mammon is the first to reach her. He has his hands on her shoulders, trying to force her to look at him; but the shade has a death grip on her and as Mammon tries to move her it feels like he’s twisting her neck. He stops just short of doing so upon seeing that her head isn’t following with the rest of her. She’s choking, awful little sputters of air catching on her lips. 

“What’s wrong!” Mammon asks, frantic. Eyes wide with panic and his hands hovering over her because he doesn’t know what to do. He watches horrified as she tries to kick her feet while suspended in midair in the hallway.

‘They can’t see it,’ she realizes. The shade is going to choke and kill her and they’re not even going to know what did it!

Until her eyes land on Belphegor. It might be her panic, but he looks so confused. 

She tries to choke out a plea for help. Her hand reaching towards him in a gamble. She can't invoke her pact. When she reaches towards him, all eyes fall to the youngest brother. 

“Whatever you’re doing, stop!” Satan shouts at Belphegor. 

“You’re blaming me?” Belphegor says with a hand coming to his chest. “When that thing is standing in front of you all?” 

‘He can see it!’ she realizes. Oh the irony that the one person who could save her is the one that wants her dead the most.

She knows that being strangled like this takes time. Precious moments of time. As this stretches on, she can feel herself growing weaker.

Mammon shouts something in infernal. She watches as a gold aura starts to surround him. 

“I said to stop it!” Satan shouts. She can feel the sharp crackle of energy that signifies his shift into his demon form. She can’t see him though, still suspended and facing her invisible killer. Her eyes looking into soulless white eyes that do not blink.

“She’s being attacked by that thing right in front of you, and you’re blaming me!” Belphegor shouts back. 

She can feel the beginnings of tunnel vision and she chokes out in pain. She has enough time to see Mammon lunge down the hall at Belphegor in a blur of glowing gold. She watches as Beel steps in front of his twin to catch Mammon, his own demon form shifting into view.

She watches Leviathan run over to break up their fight. She watches Satan run past her in a green-glowing blur.

She feels Asmo’s arms come around her, trying to hold and support her to lessen the pressure on her neck as she dangles. 

There’s shouting and the loud buzzing of insect wings and then…

And then her vision goes dark and she loses consciousness.

* * *

  
She wakes with a gasp. Her hand flies up to her throat as she tries to catch her breath. When she sits up, she hits her head, falling back to the ground and curling in on herself. 

“What?” she whispers, rubbing at the soreness on the top of her head. Her other hand still touching her neck. But surprisingly there’s no pain in her neck. For being choked out, she expects it to hurt and is confused that it doesn’t. 

She blinks a few times and tries to puzzle out where she is. She’s laying on the floor in a dusty corner. Looking up, it takes her a minute to recognize her surroundings. 

‘The staircase,’ she realizes. ‘I’m laying under a staircase.’

But why? Carefully she crawls out, careful not to hit her head a second time. Looking around now that she’s not under the stairs, she recognizes that she was laying under the staircase to the attic. 

“What’s going on?” she says aloud, asking no one in particular. It doesn’t make sense. Why would any of the brothers put her there of all places. 

Somewhere else in the house she hears a shout. She jumps in surprise, her shoulders jerking up to her ears. 

When she still hears a muffled argument she doesn’t debate running towards it. She runs closer and closer until she comes to the entryway. Standing at the bottom of the stairs she can see everyone grouped together. 

“Lucifer, can’t you do anything?” Someone - Asmo, she thinks - whines. She stops dead in her tracks. ‘No,’ she thinks. Surely this can’t be repeating.

But she hears a suppressed sob. Hears the tell-tale sniffle of Mammon’s crying and she _knows_. She’s back at the point where she let Belphegor out of the attic. 

But how? That was weeks ago now and she was just being choked by that shade and -

Belphegor laughs. Leviathan shouts something in shock. All eyes turn to her, but she’s looking at them all just as stunned. She watches as the broken, dying body - her own body - disappears in a shimmer of light from Mammon’s arms again.

Around her everyone begins to ask questions. Belphie angrily threatens to kill her again. She doesn’t respond to them the way she did the last time these events played out.

“I should be dead,” she says just barely above a whisper. She’s staring at the spot her body was in. She almost doesn’t even react when Belphie makes a move to attack her again, only to be caught and stopped by Lucifer. 

It’s a hand coming to rest on her shoulder that breaks her out of her stupor. “Sorry, it seems like we arrived a bit late,” a smooth voice says. Looking over at her shoulder she recognizes the gloved hand and jacket sleeve of the man whose voice it belongs to.

Barbatos. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another quick update! This chapter happened a lot quicker than I expected. (Time flies when you’re avoiding the awful news on election day, huh?) Anyway, I also wanted to say that I finally nailed down the rest of my outline and some plot points that I needed to sort out going forward. So hopefully I’ll be able to keep the momentum going forward.
> 
> Thanks as always for reading! I truly appreciate all the comments! I love hearing your thoughts and feedback! Seeing them is the highlight of my day! 
> 
> See you next update!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warning to mind the ptsd warning tag this chapter: social isolation is the tw

There is a cup of tea in her hands and an array of small pastries on the coffee table. She’s on the couch in the common room, sandwiched between Asmo and Belphie. Everyone is fawning over her, fighting for her attention, and the right to refill the cup that she hasn’t taken a sip from.

It is surreal.

It is surreal to be sitting and listening to this scene play out again. It is surreal to be here with a Belphie who doesn’t outright despise her. It is surreal that she knows the last several weeks will play out _again_.

It kills the mood when she says, “Barbatos, I’m not sure I understand. I was dead.” Oh the way that Mammon recoils at her words rips at the place in her heart that he’s made his home in. Even the looks of hurt that flit across the other brother’s faces is uncomfortable - painful even. 

But she has to know. 

“I collapsed the timelines so that you crossed over into this one when you died.” Barbatos explains. 

“But this timeline’s version of me is dead and I was dying in the other one too. So how did I end up under the stairs?” she asks.

Maybe it’s because he knows he cannot get away with the same cover story twice. Even if the brothers around her don’t know about her complicated jumps through time, she does.

“Consider it a failsafe,” Barbatos says. “It’s a point in time that I can pull you through when things go wrong and you find yourself irreversibly close to death.” 

She sits with the answer for a moment. Did he know this would happen? But she’s already answered the question as quickly as it entered her thoughts. Of course he did, why else would he have a failsafe for her if it wasn’t a likely possibility.

He might not like to look ahead and know what’s coming, but for the sake of the program he needs to keep her alive. 

That knowledge doesn’t sit comfortably with her. “The other timeline though, the one I was just in, they think I’m dead right?” She says. 

“You are to them, yes,” he replies. She nods. She knew those events happened, that ultimately they still matter somehow in the tangle of the web that is the timelines. 

Even still, the knowledge that versions she was just with all watched her die again sits uneasily with her. They watched her be strangled by an enemy they couldn’t see and they blamed Belphie for it. 

‘Learn from this,’ she tells herself. “Okay. So I wasn’t supposed to end up in that timeline that I was just in though, right?” she asks. He nods, so she continues. “So how did I end up there? I used your door, so if that wasn’t the intended timeline then how did I get there in the first place?”

“My current theory is that it has something to do with your lineage and your latent potential for magic causing a possible interference.” Barbatos says with his hand coming up to rest on his chin. It presents the illusion of thought. This is her fourth jump between timelines - the third time she’s living a variation of this conversation - and she knows that he knows more than he’s saying. 

She also knows there is nothing she can say or do to get him to tell her more.

“Okay, but in the other timeline - the one where these events played out for the first time - you told me I needed to go back because of the shade. You said that if I went to a timeline where I was already dead and everyone knew that I was, that it would probably solve the problem with the shade trying to kill me.” she says. 

“Wait, what was trying to kill you?” Mammon asks, but she focuses on Barbatos. That can be explained later.

“Why did the shade kill me in that timeline then?” she asks. She can almost swear that Barbatos smiles at her; his lips jumping upward in the tiniest fraction of a smile. 

“Unfortunately, it was supposed to solve the issue if your death is the event Time is attempting to correct.” Barbatos replies. 

“If it’s not, then why did it come back and try to kill me again?” she asks. 

“Time is complicated,” he answers. “I’m still not certain if it is or isn’t the defining issue. Or if some other event is the cause.” 

“Uh, what in the nine are you two talking about?” Levi asks. 

“Ah, my apologies. It’s rather rude that I didn’t explain the other issue at hand.” Barbatos says, looking that the confused and concerned looks each of the brothers is giving them. So he tells them: about the first time she had to travel through time, how she ended up in a timeline for two months before an issue arose, how she had to jump timelines again to try and fix the issue with the shades, and how a shade still killed her in the other timeline.

She sits and listens to the explanation with a cup of tea in her hands that grows colder with each passing minute.

* * *

Breakfast the following morning plays out like she remembers it originally. Belphie joins them at the table; arriving late and faced with awkwardness. Beel has already eaten most of the food.

She ignores the stares and excuses to leave the table. She wonders which Belphie she’s getting this time: the one who made the pact with her and told her not to let him kill her again, or is it the one who tortured her in her dreams.

“Do you dream at all?” Belphie asks her as he picks at breakfast leftovers. 

She swallows, her throat going tight. Which one is he? Her napping partner or her biggest nightmare.

“These days I don’t want to,” she tells him. She excuses herself before he or anyone else can ask. 

Last night she found herself still wearing the little heart pendant: still warm and enchanted around her neck. She was crying when Mammon slipped into her room, holding Asmo’s little charm. She allows him to hug her, to lead her to bed and to snuggle close. Wrapped in each other’s embrace, Mammon asks if it was the dying that upset her.

“Did you feel it?” he asks her, echoing the conversation that they had only one timeline ago. So similar and yet still so different.

She knows that timeline still exists: that the events she had lived happened, but the physical reminder hurt in an odd way. She’s thankful for the necklace - the reminder that the time she had spent wasn’t for nothing, and for the bit of protection if she should need it. But also, the terrible feeling that came with the knowledge of knowing she had left them all behind in the worst way possible.

Would the Barbatos of that timeline explain what happened to her?

There wasn’t any point in asking. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t see that version again. She’s here in this timeline now. Whichever number it is.

Instead she lays with Mammon. Focusing on this version of him: one who hasn’t yet lived the events of the upcoming weeks. 

She lets him soothe her.

* * *

As the days pass by she finds herself going through the motions. Her days at RAD are a breeze, having sat through the same lectures three times now. The Formerly Anti-Lucifer League is reestablished. She works an evening shift at Hell’s Kitchen with Belphie and Mammon. Asmo helps her pick out a dress for Diavolo’s upcoming birthday. 

She finds herself growing closer to Belphie despite her own wariness and his brother’s protective hovering. She never finds herself alone with him, but she also finds that he’s glued himself to her side. 

“I’m just curious about the person I decided to make a pact with,” he says when she asks why he’s suddenly so interested in her. 

“You don’t have to this time if you don’t want to,” she tells him. 

Still, he finds his way into her room for evening movies with Mammon, Beel, and Levi. It’s how it went the first time. It’s comfortable, but something still feels wrong.

Like she’s waiting for the other foot to fall.

It isn’t until she overhears a conversation between Satan and Belphie that things fall a little bit more into place. “You haven’t seen anything?” she overhears Satan asking.

“No,” Belphie answers. “Nothing out of the ordinary or that looks like it wants to kill her. At least, not any more so than the other demons around campus.”

“Good. She said you were the only one who saw it in two different timelines, so hopefully it’s an established pattern if it comes back.” Satan replies.

Belphie hums. “Do you think it will?”

“Barbatos didn’t seem convinced that it wouldn’t. He has power over temporal displacement and sight. If he’s not sure, we should take that to mean we should at least be wary.” 

She decides to skip the league meeting that day.

* * *

She relives each day up until the night before Diavolo’s birthday party. That is the night the shade shows up again. It appears out of nowhere, surprising her by grabbing onto her in the house’s stairwell. 

Still white-eyed with strong hands that pull her over the railing. Dangling her for a moment from a terrible height.

Belphie attempts to fight the shade, throwing purplish energy that burns through a portrait on the wall behind them. Belphie shouts for someone to come and help. 

The shade drops her. She screams, falling in-between the floors of the house. She reaches out to try to grab a railing, but there is a terrible _snap_ and a shooting pain that radiates in her arm on impact. 

She doesn’t make contact with the floor though.

She finds herself jolting upright in the same dark corner under the stairs. Crawling out of the dusty spot she can hear familiar arguing happening further in the house. She already knows to find them all in the entranceway. She already knows what she’ll see: her dead body and a brewing conflict among the seven brothers. 

She does it all over again.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast she ignores the awkwardness as Belphie joins them, late and left to pick over Beel’s leftovers. 

“You look exhausted,” Belphie says when he actually gets a good look at her.

“I’m so tired of dying,” she says. She does not care that it ruins the mood. She watches as each of them flinch at her words. Barbatos explained it all again; the time loop, the jumps between the timelines, and how the white-eyed shade is also haunting her now.

“I noticed last night that you don’t dream,” Belphie says, awkwardly trying to turn the conversation away from her death. Even if he did just kill a version of her only yesterday in this timeline. 

“I don’t want to,” she tells him. 

“If you’re worried about nightmares, I can -” 

She’s quick to cut his offer off. “No.”

Before her biggest worry was her gamble on which Belphie she got. Now it’s looking over her shoulder for a shade that no one else but she and Belphegor can see. She knows she is no safer in brightly lit and crowded rooms than if she were alone in the dark.

So new to this timeline, she doesn’t know if she wants to gamble on which Belphie she’s getting. She knows that she just can’t deal with the nightmares again. Not so soon after another reset.

She makes it three days before she starts to cut classes at RAD. She already knows the lectures and what her homework tasks are. She fills those in and submits the assignments, but spends the rest of the school day in the library. She spends her time hunched over books. 

She reads everything she can get her hands on that talks about shades. She reads demon theories on temporal manipulation and methods of divination magic. She asks Solomon and Satan to teach her how to apply the divination spells she comes across.

When that proves unsuccessful and not insightful, she reads every available volume of TSL that isn’t currently checked out. She reads and reads, looking for some answer or solution she can apply to her shade problem. What does Henry do? What should she do?

She knows she shouldn’t be cutting class, but no one tells her off. 

Not even Lucifer.

* * *

When Diavolo asks after her wellbeing, it’s Mammon who states the truth. “She’s clearly not doing well,” he says during a council meeting. 

Lucifer sighs, sitting back in his chair. “Mammon is right. She’s cutting class and retreating away from us.”

“She barely eats,” Beel adds.

“How is her sleeping?” Diavolo asks.

Before Mammon can answer, it’s Belphie who supplies the information. “She has a necklace that’s enchanted so that she doesn’t dream.” No one states the obvious. That she probably only has such a necklace because of something he did to her.

He knows it as much as they do. He knows invading her dreams is very much something he would’ve done in another timeline. He murdered her here in this timeline and the one's she come from, after all. Nightmares and other torture isn’t something he would dismiss of himself. Especially if he still felt that nagging rage that had been simmering throughout his time during his attic stay.

"There’s a lot she went through that we don’t know about,"Asmo says, crossing his arms over his chest and fidgeting a bit, squirming in his seat. “She won't talk about it either.” 

“I know she remembers dying each time,” Mammon says with a grimace. “That can’t be good for the human psyche.” 

“Has she told you any details?” Barbatos asks, surprising them all with the question. "About dying?"

“She’s told me a little bit about the times Belphie killed her, before she came back. And the times the shade gets her.” Mammon answers.

Barbatos hums, eyes glowing between blue and green. “So only the deaths of the time loops she’s experienced. Interesting.” 

Satan narrows his eyes at the butler. “You make it sound like she’s died other times.”

* * *

She dies again in a hallway at RAD. A familiar scaled demon sinks their teeth into her and rips into her with long-clawed hands. 

She had a clear view of the shade holding Mammon at bay. He couldn’t understand what was preventing him from reaching her. He couldn’t see the invisible nuisance that’s haunting her life.

He couldn't’ see how it held his wings in place.

It’s the last thing she sees before she wakes up under the damn stairs again.

* * *

She makes it two weeks this time around. 

The shade attacks her the first time she skips class to read in the library. 

When she wakes up under the stairs again, she meets the brothers in the entranceway. She walks into the scene before she’s supposed to, not stopping to watch this timeline’s version of her disappear in glittering light. She walks past them on her way to the common room. 

She doesn’t react to the same shocked and grieving expressions. “Barbatos and Lord Diavolo will be here to explain everything in five minutes.” She says as she goes to endure the same conversation again.

She doesn’t even make it to the common room though. 

Belphegor - just quick enough to take advantage of all their surprise - attacks her, claws ripping through her back and out through her chest. The pain is terrible, but she finds herself laughing for the briefest of moments. 

Of course he would.

The concerned looks of horror on the brother’s faces haunt her even as she finds herself blinking up at the underside of the staircase again.

This time she doesn’t come out from under the stairs. She finds herself laughing, which quickly turns into sobbing. She curls up tightly into a ball. Her hand finds the little heart shaped pendant on her necklace and she grips it tightly. Holding it like an anchor, a lifeline. 

“What do I keep doing wrong?” she cries. "Why does this keep happening?" 

She stays curled up in that spot for what feels like hours. She doesn’t notice the footsteps that approached. The sound of her name has her looking up. Crouched down and looking under the stairs is Beel. Surprise, relief, and sadness all over his face. He reaches for her and coaxes her out from her spot. 

Still kneeling on the floor he holds her, rocking back and forth a little as her sobs turn to sniffles. “You’re okay,” he says. It is a reassurance for them both. For her that she is okay and for him that she is alive. That his twin didn’t kill her. 

Even though he very much did.

“How’d you find me?” she asks.

“Barbatos said you’d be here,” he answers. 

She swallows, suppressing another round of sobbing that so desperately wants to take over her again. “How much has he told you?” 

“He was still explaining things when I left,” he says. He whispers her name, hugging her tighter against his chest, “I’m so sorry.”

She can’t find it in herself to tell him he isn’t the one responsible. That he doesn’t need to apologize for his twin. That he’s not the one who keeps killing her. 

“It hurts,” she whispers. “Each time it hurts and I… I remember each time.” 

She lets him hold her and rock from side to side in the shadow of the attic staircase.

* * *

The following morning she doesn’t meet them for breakfast. When Mammon crawls out of her bed to go get ready for the day, he hesitates before leaving. 

“I’ll be down in a bit,” she lies. If he reads through it, he doesn’t call her out on it. He tells her that he’ll save her a plate and then she’s alone in her room. 

As time goes by, she ignores the buzzing from her D.D.D.

She doesn’t go back to sleep. Instead she stays huddled in her bed, facing her door and with her back to the wall. 

It isn’t long before there’s a knock at her door. A sharp rapping of knuckles. “Come in,” she calls, not bothering to get up and open the door herself. To her surprise, it’s Lucifer who opens her door carrying a plate of breakfast. Whatever he expected, she can tell by the slight jump in his eyebrows that this isn’t it.

They stare at each other for a minute. His eyes study her, taking in the way she’s curled in on herself under the blanket. How her expression is neutral, but her eyes look nearly void of emotion. Not dead or glassy, but like no one is home.

Like she’s given up.

Barbatos had warned him that she had been through so much more than the one horrible moment where Belphegor killed her. He hadn’t expected the toll to be so heavy upon her.

Carefully he enters the room and brings the plate to her nightstand. “You should eat something,” he says. His neutral mask slips only slightly when she makes no movement to sit up and obey his suggestion. All she does is blink at him.

Though he is the furthest from being the best at these things, he still asks, “Do you want to talk about it?” The way her eyes water at the question stabs at something just above his sternum. 

“I can’t keep reliving the same morning over and over, and pretending it’s normal.” she says. 

‘Good’, he thinks at her response. ‘It’s a start.’ 

“I just can’t do it again,” she continues after he’s silent for a moment. “Just not this time.”

“You have the day off from RAD,” Lucifer says. “I understand this has been difficult for you. I’ll tell Mammon to stay home with you.”

“He can’t see it,” she says. 

“But Belphegor can,” Lucifer states and watches her nod. It’s out of the question, leaving the two of them alone the day after he killed her. Though, understanding what Barbatos said the night before, it’s far from the first time his youngest brother was responsible for her death.

“It really doesn’t matter though,” she says like she can read his thoughts. Maybe after so many repeated days she can. Or at least has come to know his patterns.

“I can’t leave you alone with him.” Lucifer states. 

“I know,” she says. “My pact with him isn’t at full strength. Even if it were, it’s not like he’s guaranteed to stop the shade.”

He sighs, knowing as well as she does that they’re at an impasse. “I’ll tell Mammon to check in on you later. Please eat some breakfast.” He says before he leaves her room.

Closing the door behind him, he finds Mammon waiting in the hallway. 

“I told you,” the second-born says with a shake of his head, “It’s pretty bad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another chapter! I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and doing well with all the turmoil out in the world right now. I know that keeping myself busy writing has been good for preventing me from doom-surfing and awaiting election news.
> 
> In case it doesn't come across as well as I hope, she's really starting to feel those time loops now. As MC's emotional state starts to decline between time line jumps/resets, I'd like to think the brothers pick up on it a bit quicker each time. They're living everything for the first time with each new timeline, but MC remembers each one she's been to. I image variations of the student council scene start to happen more in each timeline as she progresses through the timelines.
> 
> Once again, thank you everyone for the wonderful comments! Your thoughts and enjoyment from this fic are the highlight of my day! ♥


	13. Chapter 13

She finds herself standing in the hallway at an hour long past curfew. She can see the flashing of lights in the crack between the door and the floor under Levi’s door. He’s either involved in an anime or some game. Given his quick consumption of dinner, she’d be willing to bet on it being a game.

Because she did drag herself out of bed and her room for dinner at least. Mostly for Mammon and Beel’s sakes, though also partly because she didn’t want to hear the bickering between them. Mammon insisted it would be good for her to get out of bed and walk down to the dining room. Whereas Beel insisted that she can’t skip meals and threatened to carry her down to the dining room himself if she refused. 

While Mammon and Beel debated the importance of how she got to the dining room, she ultimately made the choice to follow them herself. The three of them entered the dining room, Mammon and Beel looking proud of themselves for getting her to come with them. 

So she sat there at the table, picking at her plate of food and avoiding the way everyone looked at her as though she were made of glass. Until finally the meal was over and she could be dismissed back to her room.

Which brought her to this moment, standing in the hallway outside of Lilith’s room. The house silent in the dead of the Devildom’s eternal night. 

She looks at the wallpapered place on the wall with Lucifer’s tiny Celestial riddle obscured within. ‘What am I hoping to find,’ she wonders to herself. ‘What am I hoping to accomplish?’

“Lilith,” she whispers aloud and watches as the door reveals itself. She enters, closing it behind her carefully. The room inside is bright and warm. The enchanted windows emit rays of light she’s sure are present in the Celestial Realm. 

Not that she would know, seeing as she’s never stepped foot there. But something about the way Beel had talked about it being an exact replica of his sister’s room back in the Celestial Realm did make her think it probably looked like that outside the windows. 

That conversation with Beel felt so long ago now. Back when the two of them were trying to find where Luke had disappeared to.

Where the Devildom is a realm of endless night, she supposes it only makes sense for the Celestial Realm to be one of endless daylight.

Her hand traces along the line of the fireplace mantle. The little D’s must clean in here too, she thinks, since no trace of dust comes up with her fingers.

The room is silent. She looks around at the covered furniture. From the lead weight that sinks in her chest, she knows that she won’t find any answers here either. After her desperate attempt to read through all of TSL the last two timelines, she had wondered if something would happen if she came back to this room. 

It’s the one she hid in during her first time loop, when she needed to hide from being seen by Lucifer and her past self. It’s the room that her Belphie - the one she made the pact with - seemed so confused by when she showed him her memories of that moment.

She thought...well, she thought that perhaps there would be some answer here. However, now it becomes clear that Christopher Peugeot’s shade in volume 17 saying to “go back” clearly isn’t her answer.

She’s learned nothing new; no new insight into what she needs to fix or why the shades keep targeting her. 

Truly, it all feels pointless. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” she asks, voice filling the empty room.

There is a rustle in the drapery that covers the furniture of the room. The motion is like if a breeze had passed through, but there is no wind and the air is still. 

It makes her pause. “Hello?” she asks, looking around the room and suddenly feeling very foolish. She is the only one standing in the room. Best case scenario is that only silence answers her, whereas the worst case is to be greeted by those damnable white eyes. 

She remembers Satan’s amused smile when she mentioned being afraid of the possibility of ghosts haunting the House of Lamentation. That was back before the time loops too. Back when getting Lucifer’s pact and Belphie free of the attic was her only concern. Back when Levi tried to trick them with some new virtual game.

But it is only her, alone in the room.

“I’m so stupid,” she says to the empty room. Really, what was she expecting to find in Lilith’s room.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” a voice whispers to her. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end, her eyes searching the room with renewed effort. 

Before she can say anything or search any longer, the light from the windows grows until it consumes the room. It floods the space in blinding light that forces her to scrunch her eyes shut. Little black spots dance behind her eyelids at the brightness. 

“What,” she says, the unfinished question tumbling from her as she stands blinded in the room. 

“You can open your eyes,” the voice tells her. It’s soft, like it’s being carried on the wind. 

Slowly she opens her eyes and finds that the sudden all-consuming brightness isn’t painful. “Where are…” she asks before her voice drifts off. What should she ask first? Where she currently is or where the voice is coming from?

“I was wondering how long it would be before you came back to me,” the voice whispers to her. 

“Back? When did I last come to you?” she asks. 

“The first time,” the voice says. “When you were letting Belphie out of the attic. You knocked on my door.” 

‘Right,’ she thinks. “Am I losing my mind?” she asks. 

The voice, Lilith’s voice, laughs gently at her. “No, you’re still very sane.” 

“Do you have any idea about what I’m supposed to do?” she asks. Then, before Lilith can answer, she continues. “Wait, do you know what’s been going on?”

“I do,” Lilith states. “You’re stuck in a loop.”

When Lilith doesn’t elaborate, she asks: “How do I get unstuck then?” 

She hears Lilith hum. “Before I answer that, how many times do you think you’ve died?” 

“Uh,” she pauses. “Well...Okay so the first time was the time Belphie killed me when I released him from the attic.” She unfolds one of her fingers, counting. “The second time the shade strangled me. The third time the shade dropped me from the stairwell. The fourth time another demon killed me, but the shade prevented Mammon from stopping it. The fifth time the shade killed me in the library. The sixth time Belphie killed me before Barbatos could show up and explain the time loops.” She thinks, counting again. “So six times.”

“You’ve died more than that,” Lilith says. “Each timeline you entered had another version of you die. Each time you come out from under the stairs you see that version disappear in Mammon’s arms.” 

Quickly she does the math. “So wait, I’ve died twelve times?”

“Not quite,” Lilith says. “You’re missing a few other time loops in there.”

“What do you mean?” she asks. 

“Your time loop starts each time with you waking up under the stairs. That is where Barbatos has established a failsafe for you. You keep coming back to the point where Belphie is already out of the attic and has already killed a version of you. That original death acts somewhat like a stability point.” 

“Why does my original death in the timeline act as a stabilizer?” she asks.

“A soul cannot exist in two places or between two beings at once. Barbatos collapses the two with each time loops reset.” Lilith explains. 

“Wait, how does that work? It’s my soul, so why would it matter if I’m in two places within the same time line?” 

“Yours is being carried over from another timeline,” Lilith states. “If you were to come back to a point before Belphie kills this timeline’s version, it would cause an issue over which version of your soul should exist at that moment in time.” 

“Hold on, then how was I able to come back the first time? The first time when I hid in your room from myself and Lucifer? I was at a point with my past self then.” 

“You were, but you were also still in _your_ timeline. A brief passing like that won’t cause your soul to consider itself split. It’s when you join with another timeline that the trouble starts.” 

She lets the answer sink in. A soul can’t exist between two different versions in the same timeline. She thinks of the little diagram she mapped out, and how in green there was an actual loop coming back upon itself. However, it branches off into a new line at Belphie’s door. 

When Barbatos sent her back after the first time the shade showed up, she found herself in a timeline where the loop actually completed itself. That timeline’s version of her did go back in time after Belphie was released from the attic, only to be revealed that she opened the door and Belphie killed her as a result. They had all waited for that version of her to come back, but she couldn’t because in the order of that time loop she was killed. 

In other words, the loop completed itself. That’s how it originally was supposed to be. So how then did she end up in the branching timeline the very first time she underwent those events? 

She had to die. One version of herself always had to die in order for her to come into a branching timeline. 

If that’s how it worked, then the question is why? Why did she end up in the branching path over and over and over again? It seemed like too much effort to keep her alive in such a complicated way, even if it is just for the sake of the program. 

She remembers what Simeon said so long ago in Purgatory Hall before the very first time loop: “Breaking the curse required the combined power of six of your brothers.” She only had five at the time. She never should’ve been able to open the door in the first place. Her Belphie had confirmed that for her too.

“Lilith, the attic door that Lucifer enchanted required the strength of six demons related to him to open it. When I opened the attic door I only had five pacts,” she says, “so how did I open it?”

Lilith is silent for several heartbeats. “I remember everything that happened to me after our Fall.” Lilith answers. She’s about to ask what that has to do with opening the attic door, but she decides to wait. She decides to listen to where Lilith is going with this.

“Then I was a human and I remembered nothing of my life. I didn’t remember my brothers or the lover I had chosen to save. The man who, through my intervention, lived for the price of my life, my grace, and my brother’s fall from grace too.” 

“I had a human life span. It wasn’t a bad life. I fell in love again with someone else and I had children with him. It was a good life, but a short one. When I died I remembered everything about who I was again. Everyone was already gone. The man I loved the first time had died and my brothers were adjusting to being demons. Suddenly I found that there was no where for me to go.” Lilith explains. She sighs, “So I started to haunt the house and watch them from afar.” 

“You couldn’t go back to the Celestial Realm after you died? Or stay in the Devildom and become a demon?” she asks. 

“No,” Lilith answers. “I was supposed to be wiped from existence for what I did. If the Celestial Realm finds me, they’ll destroy me.” 

“And you can’t be a demon because?” she asks.

Lilith chuckles light as wind chimes. Yet when she speaks, there is sadness woven within her words. “Again, the Celestial Realm can’t find me. They can’t know that I somehow survived the war. If I became a demon, it would only start another war. My reincarnation has been the best kept secret of the Devildom for many millennia now.”

“Could you be a human again?” she asks. It must be better than the alternative. To be nothing more than a fragment that can never properly interact with anyone. Especially with her brothers in the same house, close and still so far away.

“Every now and then I give it another try,” Lilith says. “I found that I can join my essence with the souls of my descendants.” 

She stands there, stunned for a moment. “Wait, are you a part of me?” 

The light laughter of Lilith’s voice as she says her name tells her her answer first. “How did you think we are able to talk right now?” 

“Whoa, wait, so I’m you?”

“No,” Lilith replies. “You’re your own person. Your soul is your own. I attached myself to your soul when you came down for the exchange program. What remains of me is within you.” She explains. 

It all feels like a bit too much. 

“There have been times that you have unintentionally used magic well outside normal human capacity. That’s the magic interacting with me,” Lilith explains. “When you drew too much power out of Asmodeus, when you accidentally use Barbatos’ doors to enter different timelines, and when you opened the attic door.”

She hesitates before saying, “so it’s always been you.” 

“Give yourself credit as well,” Lilith says. “My influence is only passive and within you. Everything you do and have done is your own.”

She pauses, taking in all the new information. 

“Lilith, how do I -” she begins to ask before being cut off. The light of the room suddenly grows blindingly bright again, almost painfully so. And now the gentle caress of the room’s light turns hot on her too.

“No, stop!” Lilith shouts. 

She’s about to ask what’s wrong when hands grab her from behind. Whipping her around to bring her face to face with the white-eyed shade. ‘No’, she thinks. ‘Not again and not so soon.’ It’s only been a day since her last death and her last reset.

“ _ **Not fair**_ ,” the shade says in a gravely tone. Words and voice sharp like metal on metal. She’s stunned silent. She’s never heard the shade speak before.

“ _ **Not fair**_ ,” the shade repeats as shadowy nails break the skin on her shoulders. “ _ **Give it back.**_ ”

“Stop!” she hears Lilith’s voice shout as her own voice gets caught in her throat.

One of the shade’s hands reels back, poised to strike. Like that scale demon did that day when she and Luke were captured. She has enough clarity of mind to realize where she’s seen the familiar gesture before. She has a moment to process what is about to happen. 

“ _ **Give it back!**_ ”

She feels the hand rip into her chest. She feels throbbing pain around the intrusion. Her vision starts to fade as the shade’s fingers wrap around something painfully. 

She watches the shade’s form start to change: elongated limbs beginning to shrink and retract and take on another humanoid shape, before she loses sight entirely. 

She’s dead before she hits the floor.

* * *

The first thing she realizes is that she’s floating. There’s nothing - absolutely nothing - as far as her eyes can see.

‘I’m dead,’ she realizes. It should scare her, but all she feels is an odd sense of calm. Strangely this place is familiar, like she’s been here many times before. ‘It should’ve only been the once though,’ she thinks. Although according to Lilith, her soul has passed through here more than twelve times now.

She doesn’t have a sense of feeling, per se. She cannot feel her feet standing on anything, nor her hands at her side. Focusing on it, she doesn’t feel herself breathing or blinking either. ‘Perhaps this is what it feels like to be an incorporeal soul floating on its way.’ If it is, she certainly doesn't envy Lilith's existence in this form.

She may not have a body at the moment, but she can look around. However that works. 

She can feel herself drift. With some effort she finds that she can control the direction she feels herself going in. Not that it makes much difference being entirely in the dark, empty expanse around her. 

‘Where am I?’ she asks no one and nothing. She is not sure how long she spends there drifting. There doesn’t seem to be a sense of time in the place. ‘Shouldn’t I be in the Devildom or Celestial Realm?’ The logical part of her knows that she should probably be afraid, but that sense of calm still has its hold on her.

‘Shouldn’t I wake up under the stairs?’ she wonders. Is it better or worse now that she isn’t?

Eventually, as she drifts, she comes across what looks like a series of fuzzy clouds. Fuzzy not in the sense that they look fluffy or inviting to touch, but in a way that reminds her of an old pixilated photo. Like a blurry polaroid. There’s an image there, but it’s hard to decipher. 

She drifts closer, trying to puzzle the image out. If it weren’t for the unnatural calm, she probably would’ve felt her stomach twist in confusion and fear. 

Frozen in time, she looks upon an image of Leviathan - full demon form - ripping a clawed hand into her chest. Squinting her eyes she can make out the student council chamber in the background. Several of the brothers and Lord Diavolo are in the background too. Mammon looks like he’s slipped on something, his hands thrown out to catch his balance. Lucifer is midair, wings spread in flight, but it doesn’t look like he’s reached her in time. 

‘The TSL Contest,’ she realizes. Although this isn’t how the event played out. Lucifer saved her before Leviathan could attack. But looking here, it looks as though Leviathan has killed her. 

Looking ahead she can see another image. Approaching it too, she looks and tries to decipher what exactly is happening. 

In this one, Lucifer has struck her with some blast of power. Her body charring as a result of the intensity behind the force. Behind the image of her she can see Luke and Beel standing - no, cowering. ‘This was down in the crypt’ she realizes. She’s only seen Lucifer so angry only once before: the time Luke touched the grimoire near the empty memorial of Lilith. And Lucifer, in his rage, had told her to choose which of them to save. ‘He would’ve killed me if not for Diavolo showing up in time.’ 

In time. How had Lord Diavolo known that she was in such danger that day? Barbatos must’ve said something. He was in charge of keeping an eye on potential issues most likely to appear within the timelines.

Did this actually happen? Did Lucifer and Leviathan kill her those times, resulting in Barbatos having to rewind time or pick a new timeline out of millions to prevent her death?

Something inside of her knows the answer. ‘Am I familiar with this place because my soul has been here so many times even before the latest loops started?’

She drifts to the next image. It has something to do with an incredibly large snake. Henry 1.0, she realizes. It looks like whatever happened, had happened too quickly. Mammon, Beel, and Levi all stand around in various degrees of rushing towards her. But she can see that she’s hanging from the snake’s jaws and looking incredibly limp.

In the next one she is a broken, bleeding thing on Satan’s bedroom floor. ‘When I refused his pact the first time,’ she thinks; remembering how his anger had flared in the moments before Lucifer showed up and the body switching book became involved. 

Another image and she is dead on the floor of the attic with Belphegor standing over her, manic laugher on his features. ‘This feels different from the way it happened,’ she thinks. Looking at the next image, she sees a more familiar scene. This is the way she remembers Belphie killing her: dragging her downstairs and throwing her broken body at his brothers. Her dying in Mammon’s arms before the timelines merged.

Looking back at the previous version she realizes that that one must be the first time Belphie killed her. In the other timeline before he walked in on his brothers saving her from Lucifer’s anger. This is the Belphie that ended up chained up in the basement of Lord Diavolo’s castle. ‘They said he killed me then too,’ she remembers. It almost surprises her how calm she is about it. Well, the second time around he killed her too so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

How many times has she been here, she wonders as she drifts along.

There are more scenes with Belphie. The times he killed her in other timelines, she realizes. Multiple times he’s strangled her, times he’s broken her bones like toothpicks, and times he’s run her through with his claws. 

Then she’s looking at versions of events that she remembers.

The shade strangles her in one image. She can make out the images of several of brothers fighting down at the end of the hall. Beel defending Belphie from an angry Mammon and Satan. All while Asmo holds her as the shade chokes the life out of her.

In the next it is looming over her at the bottom of the house’s main stairwell. Her arm bent at an impossible angle and blood pooling under her head. 

The next image has that scale demon biting into her. Mammon is hopelessly trying to reach her in the background of one of RAD’s hallways.

In the next she stands in the library with the shade snapping something in her neck. 

In the next image Belphie has his clawed hand ripping out through her chest.

Until finally she reaches the last image. It is one she can not decipher. It is too bright to make out any of the surroundings. Almost as though she is looking directly at a light source. Though there is no figure within that she can make out, the image still invokes a familiar sort of feeling. 

Lilith, she realizes.

‘Why am I here’, she wonders again. Turning back she can see that past the rows of memories are shadowy figures, each of them emerging from their respective memories. If she could muster up the emotion, she’s sure she would find the sight terrifying.

‘I’m already dead’, she thinks. What more could they do. Could they kill her in this weird in-between before Barbatos pulls her through to the place under the stairs?

Worse, does she want them to?

The shadowy shades look at her with their white eyes. Each one looking so similar, but there are small variations. One with a spine that seems to not be aligned properly: like it’s been snapped in half. One with a neck at an odd angle. One with a darker shadowy blotch on their chest.

It takes her a moment to realize she’s looking at the manifestations of the injuries from each of those timelines. How each of them looks like they represent a way that she has died. But that would mean….

“You’re me,” she finds herself speaking into the void at the dozen of white-eyed shades. Looking at them properly she can see them for what they are: versions of her. But why would she kill herself? 

“A soul cannot exist as two within the same timeline,” she remembers. That’s what Lilith was trying to explain.

“ _ **It’s not fair**_ ,” she hears several of them mutter in an otherworldly distorted whisper. Like one voice has become two. A chorus of voices whispering into the void around her: _**"Why is it you?” “What did I do wrong?” “Why did I die?” “Why did you live?” “Why can’t it be me?”**_

“I don’t understand,” she tells them. She doesn’t understand what she’s seeing. Why would her own timeline deaths haunt her? Why would they kill her? What is the purpose?

“ _ **Why am I here?**_ ” a shade wails. 

Another voice cries. “ _ **I want to live!**_ ” 

“ _ **I didn’t deserve to die!**_ ” Another shade’s voice echoes in the vastness.

Somewhere another shade asks, “ _ **Why do you get to come back?**_ ” 

“I don’t know!” she shouts, looking at the dozens of faces. It’s overwhelming now. The knowledge, the memories of each death, the realization that she’s been repeating the timeline more than she realized. 

How many times did Barbatos rewind time to prevent her death? How many times had she really died?

Shadowy hands reach out for her. “ _ **I don’t want to stay here**_ ,” one calls. “ _ **I don’t want to be dead**_ ,” another cries. “ _ **It’s not fair**_ ,” yet another says. 

Suddenly she wants to run, but she can’t in this place. She doesn’t want them to touch her. “Stay away,” she tells them. Still they approach with outstretched hands. Lifeless white eyes staring at her. “No,” she says as they inch ever closer. “No!”

The void around her turns to light again. The shades fading in the brightness. “Wake up,” Lilith’s wind chime soft voice says. 

Her eyes snap open and every inch of her feels sore. Looking around she can see that she’s curled up under the staircase again. She hears laughter above her head.

‘That’s Belphegor,’ she realizes. She curls up tighter. ‘I was dead,’ she thinks. ‘I was really dead that time.’ 

Eventually she hears heavy footfalls on the stairs, coming down towards her. She holds her breath and tries to slow the pounding of her heart.

Belphegor walks past, out of the stairwell and towards the entryway.

‘Wait,’ she pauses suddenly. ‘Belphie usually is already down the stairs when I wake up here.’ 

When he’s far enough away, she climbs out from under the staircase and begins the climb up to the attic. Up and up until she reaches the open door. She hesitates just outside the door frame. There’s a sinking in her gut, like she knows what awaits her inside.

‘What time loop am I in?’ she wonders before she looks around the doorframe. 

Inside the room is empty. There’s blood on the floor, but no body - _her body_ \- to be seen. 

‘I’m still in this time loop,’ she realizes. 'The one where my two souls collapse into one'.

Turning on her heels, she rushes back down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! I really hope this chapter answers some questions in a satisfying way. 
> 
> Once again, thank you everyone for the continued support and interest in this fic. I appreciate each comment so much! I really enjoy reading your thoughts and theories. 
> 
> See you all next update!


	14. Chapter 14

She runs into the common room to see everyone gathered. Barbatos and Lord Diavolo are standing where they alway do in front of the fireplace. Just as she finds the brothers in their respective spots on the couch. The only difference is that she is not sandwiched between Asmo and Belphie for this conversation. It’s almost like she’s walked into a regular gathering with them.

Except that several of them gasp at her sudden appearance. Mammon’s puffy eyes landing on her like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Why would he, she was dead in his arms only a short while ago after all.

“Ah, right on time,” Barbatos says with a smile. As though this is normal for her to do; like this is how events go in every iteration of this conversation. 

“I know how I opened the door,” she says. “How it was a fragment of Lilith inside of me who did it.”

Around the room eyes widen in surprise. Even Lord Diavolo seems surprised by her statement. The way he looks to Barbatos speaks volumes to her though. Barbatos didn’t tell him about this aspect of the conversation happening.

Barbatos only continues to smile at her though. He gestures to the coffee table with the same cups and pastries lined up. The same as it has been the last several times she’s lived through this conversation. “Tea?” he asks.

“No,” she says with a bit too much force. “I’d like to have some answers instead.” 

Lucifer’s eyebrows raise, his lips parting slightly as though gaping at her. When he says her name his tone is both incredulous and warning at the same time. She doesn't care.

“Yes, I was just explaining how my powers allowed you to go from one timeline to the next. Thus explaining why,” Barbatos begins to say before she interrupts him.

“Did you know the shades are me?” she asks, ignoring the continued and growing wide eyed stares around the room. A mixture of shock that she is even standing here and confusion as to what she’s talking about. 

Though perhaps some of the shock is that she’s speaking to him as she is.

Still Barbatos keeps his polite smile. “We seem to be having this conversation out of order. Why don’t you sit down and we can explain it all properly?” He gestures to a seat on the couch. Something about it sounds like an order; like a warning. 

Oh she knows it is a fight she will not win. She wants to stand out of spite. But as the moment drags on she instead heads towards where Mammon is sitting and squeezes into the seat next to him. 

“Ultimately I think it’s pointless. I know I’m going to be killed again within either a matter of days or weeks,” she says once she’s seated. “So we’ll be having this conversation again anyway.” 

Barbatos busies his hands preparing a cup of tea for her. “I’ll try to keep it brief for you this time then.” He says with his tone so light. As if they are both not talking about her inevitable death looming ahead again.

She takes the cup from his hands and then places it on the coffee table in front of her. The action almost out of spite. She refuses to drink the same damnable cup of tea again.

Then he launches into a long explanation. She zones out for most of it, already so familiar with what it is he’s explaining. Instead she looks at Belphie on the couch across from her. How he hugs his knees to his chest as he leans against Beel while he stares at her. Almost like he is trying to see the part of Lilith within her that she mentioned. A part that he somehow missed.

She knows that they can see into her soul from all the times they’ve joked with her about how shiny it is. “Obnoxiously so,” they’ve teased her in the past. A small vindictive part of her hopes that he finds it, that he sees it. 

Mammon holds one of her hands like a lifeline; like if he were to let her go she would stop being real. Whereas Satan on the other side of her has his hands balled into fists in his lap. He shies away from her space, almost like he is afraid he will hurt her. That whatever rage is boiling within him will somehow spill out and scald her. 

It is the same raw hurt that that comes with every version of them seeing her die. Usually by this point of the conversation it has eased and been replaced with some form of joy that she’s cheated death; however, perhaps the odd way she entered this time has not helped to soothe anything.

It almost scares her to realize that she does not care. Even though she knows this is temporary and she will be back here, she should at least help them to cope with the events they’ve just lived through. 

But that feels harder to do right now.

Finally, Barbatos finishes the bulk of the explanation: the timelines, her death and return, and the shades that have been attempting to kill her in other timelines. Finally he hands the conversation over to her questions. His face is a polite enough mask as he addresses her.

“Let’s start with the shades,” she says, “Did you know they were me?” 

“It was hard to be certain.” Barbatos answers and she can feel her face fall into a grimace. She wants to ask what the point of this is if he’s only going to dodge her questions, but at the last minute she decides it's better to get some answers instead of none.

“Alright fine. What about the timelines? I saw myself die other ways outside of this designated time frame or whatever. I thought this time loop is only supposed to be for me to get Belphie out of the attic and not end up dead even though he keeps killing me.” She says. “So how did you sort the other deaths out?” 

“Time out, the other what’s?” Levi says almost choking on his unbelieving, high-pitched tone. “Like you’ve died before this point?”

“Yep,” she says, popping the ‘p’ at the end. “There was a time when you attacked me during the TSL contest and you killed me,” she states and watches Levi gape at her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “There was a version of events back in the crypt with Luke, Beel, Lucifer and I, where Lucifer killed me before Lord Diavolo showed up. There was also a time that Henry 1.0 ate me in the castle’s labyrinthe. There were a bunch of previous incidents. So am I correct in assuming that you’ve created other loops previously to prevent me from dying those times?”

“Hmmm, I see that you gained a bit more clarity in the last loop.” Barbatos remarks, smile still pulling at the corners of his lips. “You have to understand that there are an infinite amount of possibilities for events to take. For me, sorting through them is like trying to group and identify every star in the universe. It can be done, but it takes concentration. Sometimes the defining points of events don’t become clear until it’s too late to act upon them. At that point, I merely rewind; or go through one of the doors to an earlier point in the past in order to give adequate warning so that the course of time can be diverted. In that way, I make the previous events that led to my use of a door into a secondary timeline that no longer holds sway over the larger scale of time.”

“So then why am I stuck in this loop?” she asks. “Why not just go further back and divert it completely?”

“As I know you’ve heard before, the timeline is attempting to correct it’s path back to a major event.” Barbatos replies. “My use of collapsing timelines and the failsafe are a temporary measure to help you find a series of events where the timeline will consider itself fixed.”

“I remember what you said the first time after the shades started showing up,” she states. “The way you explained it is that there are major events that multiple timelines converge onto; and when these events are altered or diverted, then the timeline has difficulty reshaping itself. You said that it will try to reincorporate the event into another point in the timeline.” she states and watches as Barbatos nods along at her understanding of his explanation.

“But the last time I died, I saw that the shades were me. They’re the versions of me that end up dead, so how does that work?” she asks.

“That’s just the form it’s taking,” Barbatos states. 

From the way he says it, she knows that he’s not going to elaborate. She can’t help but push the envelope as she asks, “So it has nothing to do with my soul existing in two points in the same timeline suddenly?”

She watches his mask slip, the small curl of his polite smile falling. “That is far more complicated.” 

“I’ve got time for an explanation,” she says, words clipped. “Last time I died, Lilith told me that it had to do with a version of me dying in this timeline and a living version of me crossing over from another timeline. So is everything really an issue of my soul being dead and alive at the same time?” 

She watches as Barbatos’ eyes make contact with Lord Diavolo’s. Whatever understanding passes between them, it is lost on her. As quickly as he looked at him, he looks back at her. She doesn’t realize that her hand has tightened around Mammon’s. 

However, before either of them can say anything, Belphie snorts from across the couch. Glances switch to the youngest of the brothers as he shakes his head disbelievingly. She watches as he shifts on the couch, his legs coming to plant his feet on the ground in a stance that usually mirrors Beel’s.

“I might’ve believed half of this crap, but now not so much,” Belphie states. Beel says his name, warning and concern wavering in his tone. “I don’t for a minute believe that you spoke to Lilith.”

“Tough, because I did.” she states, looking across at him. 

“You claimed to have a piece of her in you, but I don’t see it.” Belphegor states with icy calm in his tone. 

She shrugs. “I’m not going to pretend to know how that shit works. What she told me is that she can hitch a ride with her descendants, but her influence is passive. It’s why I sometimes get flashes of her memories or do weird things with magic; such as that time I pulled all that power out of Asmo during the retreat.”

Belphegor growls something, a low rumble in his chest. Probably something foul and unflattering from the way Lucifer scowls at him. “Bullshit,” he finally says. “I’m not believing any of your human nonsense.”

“Whatever,” she says, matching his tone. At least this saves her the guessing game this timeline: she’s getting the Belphegor of nightmares.

“You might be able to manipulate my brothers, but I’m not falling for it.”

‘I’ve heard that one before,’ she wants to say. Knowing it will do nothing but cause further conflict she settles for saying, “You’re the only one who’s manipulated people through this whole thing. I haven’t.”

“I’m sure you’d love for everyone to believe your pacts are for angelic reasons,” Belphie sneers. Before he can complete that line of though, she speaks up.

“I mostly pursued them to help get your cranky ass out of the attic. I did it for Beel, because he missed you. But it’s not like you cared what your brothers felt when your plans came about.”

“You don’t get to -” Belphegor starts, pointing a clawed finger at her. She can see his teeth sharpening as she speaks too. 

She has died and done this so many times now, she refuses to be cowed by him. “You killed me, so let’s just call this shit what it is.”

“Oh no, according to him,” Belphegor says as he points to Barbatos, “you didn’t die.”

She lets out a harsh laugh, “You did kill me.” It hurts to see the way that Beel flinches next to his twin, but she can’t bring herself to let it slide this time. To let Belphegor get away with thinking that somehow Barbatos has undone his actions and made everything okay. She knows she’ll be back to square one the next time a shade or Belphegor kills her, but she cannot stay quiet about it this time. “And my curse through this whole damn thing is that I remember every single time that you do! Every single time that you’ve strangled me, snapped my neck, and crushed and pierced my ribcage: I remember it all!”

She doesn’t realize how loud she’d gotten until the silence in the room is deafening. She knows she should shrink back as the lone human in a house of powerful demon lords. Instead she doesn’t, and lets the fires of her anger spark. 

Something in her chest actually feels good when Belphie stares at her with a bit of wide-eyed horror. ‘Serves him right,’ her thoughts sneer.

“I’ve been doing this so many times that I’m starting to lose count,” she says. “And having the pacts hasn’t done a damn thing to save me. Even the one with you hasn’t stopped you from torturing me in my sleep or killing me again.”

She watches his expression shift. Where his eyes were wide in mild surprise, now his brows furrow and his jaw clenches. “Your what with me?”

“Pact,” she repeats. “You made a pact with me the first time we went through these events.” She twists in her seat to show him her neck. Even as every single one of her instincts tell her not to put her back to him, to not give him an opening.

Finally he says, “What is wrong with you?” 

At that she actually laughs. A short and bitter sound. “Apparently a lot,” she bites out, turning back to stare at him again.

His voice rises and darkens like she remembers it doing back up in the attic. “Why in the nine hells would you make a pact with me after everything you’ve said I’ve done?” Belphegor asks. “How stupid are you? That you would give me your soul for a pact?” 

“You think I’d give you my soul?” she asks, her voice rising again. He almost looks surprised that she would dare to speak to him in such a way. 

“Like I’d make a pact with you for anything less,” Belphegor shoots back.

“Surprise, you made it with me for nothing,” she snaps back.

“Bullshit!”

“It’s true!” she shouts back. 

“Human,” Mammon warns, tone light and almost afraid. But she doesn’t back down, her eyes remaining fixed on Belphegor and burning into his matching stare.

“That first timeline you made the pact with me, we were friends! But ever since then it’s been a gamble if I’m getting my friend or my worst fucking nightmare!”

She feels Satan stand up and put distance between them. Whether to prevent a feedback loop between them of his sin’s influence, she’s not sure. Whatever his reason for doing so, she appreciates the gesture knowing that her feelings are her own in this moment.

Belphegor ignores Lucifer’s warning call of his name. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” he nearly snarls. 

“I’m talking to you: Belphegor, seventh-born demon lord of the Devildom, Avatar of Sloth, and the asshole who keeps murdering me because of some misplaced anger at humanity!”

“You don’t get to - ” Belphegor says, surging to his feet and pointing a clawed finger at her. His horns flicker into existence around him. Beel is just as quick, looping arms around his shoulders and holding him in place. Except she refuses to stand down, or to just sit and continue to take this shit. She stands just as fast, shouting back at Belphegor. Mammon is quick to mirror Beel, standing and holding her back by the shoulders.

Maybe she should be afraid, but right now that little spark of anger has become an inferno. She’s died so many times now, she’s no longer afraid of it.

Lucifer stands, exerting his authority, and demands that they both calm themselves.

“She has a right to be angry,” Satan shouts above them as their argument erupts around the room.

Lord Diavolo sighs, watching the scene unfold. “Well this didn’t go anywhere near as well as I was hoping.” 

“It’s a stepping stone,” Barbatos says beside him.

* * *

Upon opening his door and seeing her standing there in the hallway, Satan blinks, stares, and says her name almost a little confused. “What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Can I sleep in your room tonight?” she asks. “I don’t care if it’s the couch.”

Satan looks a bit taken aback by the request. Clearly believing Mammon better suited to offering her comfort, especially after the events of the afternoon. Any of his brothers are a better option for her really, with the exception of Belphie obviously.

She supposes it’s only a fair assumption. Even before letting Belphegor out of the attic, Mammon was known to spend nights in her room; cuddled up with her in her bed. Beel and even Levi were known to camp out in her room on occasion too.

“You don’t usually come to me in these timelines, do you?” he asks. That uncanny ability to read through her actions probably bringing him to the same conclusion. That no matter how many timelines these events have played out in, how often does she actually come to him in this regard.

“I haven’t like this before, no,” she answers honestly. Even if she knows she’ll die soon and have to do it all over again, she will not lie to any of them. She won’t abuse and manipulate their trust like that. She won’t let Belphegor be right about that. “But I also haven’t turned the earlier conversation into an argument like that before either.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“Honestly, I feel safe with you,” she says and watches as his brows disappear into his bangs. 

“Are you sure about that?” Satan asks. To him, he is still only the latest of her pacts.

“Yes,” she says as she pulls the necklace out from under her shirt. “You enchanted it for me in a different timeline. You made so that I’ll sleep dreamlessly so that Belphegor can’t torment me with nightmares again. It’s helped in every timeline since.” 

She swallows a little at the forming lump in her throat. “And before I really appreciated what you said. You let me be angry when no one else would.”

Looking at him, she watches as his eyes soften. He steps aside, making room for her to enter his room. 

She makes her way over to the couch. “The bed is more comfortable,” Satan says.

“Are you okay with that?” she asks.

He gives her a small smile. “Yes,” he says and he begins to walk past her to the couch instead. 

She catches his arm, effectively stopping him in his tracks. “I’m not kicking you out of your bed, Satan,” she says, “Are you okay with…” She trails off, vaguely gesturing at herself. It only makes his smile widen, a bit disbelieving. 

He takes her hand in his and walks back towards his bed, leading her to follow. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t. Now come on, it’s late and I’m sure you’re tired.”

So she slips into bed with him, becoming the little spoon. However, there is a long stretch of time where he knows she is still awake, and that she is just staring out into the darkness of his room.

Satan shushes her gently. “Stop worrying,” he whispers, his arm coming to protectively hold her. “Just go to sleep.”

She closes her eyes and Satan waits. He waits until her breathing evens out and he knows that finally she is asleep. Only then does he let his mask drop.

Frowning into the darkness, he listens to the sounds of the house around him. Sounds much too muffled and faint for human ears. 

He ignores the tiny pitter-patters of the Little Ds running around, cleaning in the dead of night. He hears Asmo roll over in his bed. He hears Lucifer shuffling papers at his desk in his private study. He hears Mammon’s footsteps pacing the length of her room. He hears Levi hitting the buttons on his controller with more force than necessary. Until finally he hears both Beelzebub and Belphegor in their own room. 

Nothing else within the house stirs.

* * *

She sits at breakfast and does nothing to acknowledge Belphegor when he joins them late. She does not meet the glares he levels at her. She grabs her bag and follows as most of his brothers leave for RAD. 

'I've already broken the pattern of this timeline,' she thinks to herself. She sends Simeon a text asking if he has time to see her. When he says yes, she surprises him in the library during his free period.

“Don’t you have class?” he asks, looking up from his book as she joins him at his table.

“I’ve sat through the same lecture so many times now that I’ve lost count.” she replies. She doesn’t clarify her meaning as Simeon stares at her with confusion. ‘Let me not do more time crimes than I should,’ she thinks to herself, remembering Barbatos’ rules. 

“I have a hypothetical that I really need your help with,” she says instead.

Simeon blinks at her, but removes his reading glasses and marks his page. Giving her his full attention he says, “Okay.” 

“What happens if a human soul exists in two places at once?” she asks. Whatever Simeon was preparing for, it clearly wasn’t this line of thought. 

“It can’t exist in two places as a whole, no.” He says. “It can exist in two fragments between a human and whatever object they’re sealing away part of themselves into. It’s a rare practice between some sorcerers, but please don’t tell me it’s something you’re thinking of pursuing. The potential dangers far outweigh any reward you might’ve heard of.”

“I have no intention or desire to do anything of the sort,” she assures, watching as some of the concern washes away from his face. “So a soul can be fragmented and exist in a person and an object then? Is it possible for the same soul to exist within two people?” 

“No, that’s impossible,” Simeon answers. “A soul coming into contact with another soul like that would begin to destroy them both. Either the soul on the receiving end of the fragment would start to reject it or attempt to absorb it into themselves: both of which could destroy that fragment.” 

She wants to ask about the fragment of Lilith, but holds her tongue. She can’t reveal the Devildom’s best kept secret. Instead she says, “Okay, but what about a person who jumps from one timeline to another. Can the same person, with the same soul, exist in the same timeline?” 

Simeon looks her up and down. “Why do you want to know about this?”

“Would you be okay with me saying that Barbatos said I can’t tell you why?” She says. It feels wrong to think about lying to the angel, so she does not. 

“That’s fair,” Simeon says, surprising her with how quickly he agrees. She wonders how well Simeon knows Barbatos for that to be his answer. 

“To answer your question, no. One version of a soul cannot exist as two within the same timespace. Like the example of a soul split between two people, the two whole souls within the same timeline will start to compete for dominance: for the right to exist within that space.” 

“Okay,” she says, “now hypothetically, what would happen if the same soul exists in two people within the same timeline, but one of them lives and the other dies?”

“What?”

“Like does the dead soul go somewhere like the Celestial Realm or the Devildom? Or does it become part of the other version that’s still alive? Or does it just stop existing?” The sound of her name ends her rambling string of questions.

“A soul can’t exist like that,” he tells her. “Even if one of the versions of that human dies, there are still two versions of that person’s soul, right?” 

She nods, following his explanation. 

“Those two versions of the same soul are still going to fight for the right to exist. The conflict between them might not be immediate, but it will eventually happen. The dead version doesn’t go anywhere. They become stuck - unable to pass into either of the realms, but also unable to interact with the one they're stuck in - until the conflict is settled.” 

She pauses, thinking over her next question carefully.

“Can that conflict be settled with one version still alive and another one being dead?”

The way Simeon’s face falls into a small frown gives her the answer before he says, “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you all so much again for your continued reading, support, and comments! I appreciate it all tremendously! 
> 
> Hope to see you all in the next update too!


	15. Chapter 15

With her head full of new thoughts, she doesn’t recognize who is in the hallway with her until it’s too late. One minute she is walking down the hall to her alchemy lab, the next she finds herself slammed up against the wall. Her books falling and scattering in the hallway under her feet.

“Forget your escort, little lamb?” a familiar voice sneers. The same ugly maw of teeth inches away from her face. 

Her hands come up to clutch at his hand holding her by the front of her uniform. She tires to peel fingers back to loosen his grip. The attempt only makes him laugh.

“Seems their new pet human thinks she can just go where she pleases here,” the scaled demon says, drinking in the fear that flits across her features. She opens her mouth to suck down enough air to scream, but suddenly his disgusting hand is covering her mouth. His hold on the front of her uniform releasing in order to do so. With the pressure of being held up by her chest relocated to her head, she places her feet flat upon the wall to relieve the sudden pressure of her weight on her neck. 

She notices how some other demons around them in the hallway pause to watch. Some with curiosity, some with sudden bloodlust, and some with trepidation. However, no one makes a move to intervene. 

With her feet planted on the wall, she kicks out with as much force as she can: aiming below his belt. He drops his hold to avoid it, but quickly grabs her hair and slams her back against the wall, snarling.

‘I’ve died like this once before,’ she thinks. This demon has attacked her twice now, and she’ll be damned if she dies to him again without a fight. 

Wildly she swings her fists at him, landing a few feeble blows on his arm. There is a small wave of laughter in the hallway. Some of the onlookers are gathering closer, circling around to watch like vultures waiting on the remnants. 

Quicker than she can anticipate, the scaled demon catches her fist in his hand. There is a sickening ‘ _crack_ ’ before she registers the pain. He’s snapped some bone in her wrist; the pain quickly radiates up her arm and a cry of pain escapes her lips before she can stifle it.

Approval and encouragement ripples into the crowd at the sound of her pain. 

Her eyes don’t leave her attacker, his reptilian eyes gleaming in delight. She knows he’s toying with her and that he is going to kill her. 

None of her guardian demons are here to save her now.

Though she does not fear death, knowing that she will wake up back under the damnable attic stairs; she is not eagerly awaiting the pain she knows he will put her through. 

The last time he killed her it had been quick: an opening provided by a shade that held Mammon away from rescuing her. Even though he could not see the shade aiding his fight, he had approached the matter with more urgency. But now in the hallway here, in this time and surrounded by an eager crowd, he is taking his sweet time just as he did in his lair.

His grip travels further up her forearm. She feels his fingers tense, realizing only a fraction of a second too late what it is he is about to do.

_‘Crack’_

She screams again, a terrible sound pulling itself out of her lungs. 

Something in the depths of her being stirs.

Something light and warm and growing.

Something that screams for her to reach outside of herself. It feels like that first time: that time that Solomon lent her his magic, and the time that she summoned Mammon to her in the suffocating dim of this demon’s lair. 

‘Call them,’ her instincts scream at her as she focuses on the feeling instead of the pain. ‘Help, help, help!’ she thinks, trying to push her feelings into her pacts and desperately hoping for something. One by one, she feels that glowing sensation inside of her spread across her skin where each of her pacts lay.

Seconds tick by and for a horrible moment, looking up into the toothy maw of her attacker, she’s afraid her attempt has done nothing more than waste her last few precious moments. Her last seconds of this timeline before she’s forced to do it again.

A rush of terrible noise fills her ears. For a second, she thinks it is her own blood rushing that she’s listening to. Until she recognizes it for what it really is: buzzing, a thunderous cacophony of insect wings.

One second she is looking up at her attacker. The next she is suddenly thrown up against the wall; and then dropped and left to crumple to the floor. Her attacker held his grip on her injured arm as Beezlebub tackled him into the wall, taking her with him until he released his grip to deal with a much more urgent matter. 

Quickly she scrambles, kicking away from the wall and her attacker. Her other arm comes to bring her broken one to her chest in a protective cradle as she puts distance between herself and the scaled demon.

Beezlebub lets out a low, dark rumble in a language she doesn’t understand. The sound coming from his chest vibrates in the air and through her, rattling her bones as he speaks. She has long enough to see the crowd begin to flee, to hear the scuffle of their feet as they take off in both directions down the hallway. Then her vision is obscured by a wall of shifting and forming insects. Their numbers are so vast that she finds herself plunged into darkness within their protective bubble.

She focuses on the sound of their wings and the various drones of buzzing surrounding her. She pretends she does not hear what comes after the pounding against the wall: four terrible thumps that rattle the floor under her. She focuses on Beel’s bugs around her drowning out the sudden screaming, and at what one point sounds like the breaking of bones.

Then the insects part and she is brought back into the light. In one fluid motion, Beel has her in his arms: one arm under her knees and the other against her shoulder to keep her against his chest and steady her. He moves them through the hallways so quickly that they start to blur in her vision. 

As they walk the halls she can hear the buzzing of Beelzebub’s wings. He emits an aura of irritation that sends other students running to get out of his way, clearing the hallways around them. 

She has never seen him so angry. 

“Beel, I can walk,” she whispers, shrinking into herself and willing others to ignore her. She’s sure that most do, too preoccupied with Beel and his display of power to pay too much attention to the small human in his arms. It is only at the tiny waiver of her voice in her ears that she comes to realize that she’s crying. Beel doesn’t respond to her, and instead she buries her face into his chest.

Till finally Beel comes to a stop and he gently helps to put her down in a chair. She blinks at the room a couple of times before she recognizes it as the student council room. He’s placed her in his chair as he goes to grab something from behind Lucifer’s, still in his full demon form. 

She can feel her body shaking, trembling slightly as she comes back to awareness of her surroundings.

Looking up and over to where Beel is, something in the window’s glass catches her attention over whatever it is he’s searching for. In the small silhouetted reflection she sees wings: feathered and white. The image of them over in where approximately Beel should be. 

She blinks at the image, barely recognizing what it is she’s seeing, until Beel kneeling in front of her has her pulling her attention away from the tinted window glass.

Whatever Beel said she must’ve missed because she blinks dumbly at him and his upturned hand waiting for her. Her eyes dart to the floor, taking in the sight of the first aid kit by his knee; and then return to his eyes. His face is set in a stony mask, but she can see the worry taking root in his gaze.

“Let me see it,” Beel asks again, calm and gentle. This time she complies, bringing her broken arm out of the protective hold she’s had against her chest. She hisses in pain as he touches the spot where her wrist is bent. He doesn’t test where her forearm is swelling and turning a rapid, ugly shade of purple. 

“Thank you, Beel,” she manages to say as he sorts through potions within the kit.

He blinks back up at her. “What?” 

“Thank you,” she repeats, her words still shaky. “For saving me.” His gaze returns to the kit. He selects a small glass bottle with red fluid in it and uncorks it, holding it out to her. 

“Beel?” she asks, taking the bottle from his hand. He mutters something, low, rumbly, and indecipherable to her. “Beel, I can’t understand when you mumble in Infernal.” 

“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he finally manages to say, sad eyes looking back up to meet hers. 

“Why?” she asks.

“Belphie killed you because of -” he begins to say, but she’s quick to cut him off.

“No, Beel, no. That’s not for you to apologize for.” She moves to reach for him, but realizes she has the bottle in her hand. 

She moves to put it down on the arm of the chair, but Beel is quick to put his hand out to keep it in her grasp. “Drink that,” he insists. Quickly she does, powering through the thick liquid in two gulps. She doesn’t hide her dislike of the after taste. Beel takes the empty glass from her in one hand, and keeps a gentle hold of her injured one in his other. 

Healing broken bones by potion is not the same as having Simeon magic them back into shape. She can feel the shifting of her bones under her skin as the potion begins to take effect. Where Simeon’s magic had the added small blessing of being painless, she cannot say the same of potions. There is a series of creaks and pops coming from her arm. She bites her lower lip to keep from whimpering in pain.

It doesn’t stop the small, high pitched noise that slips out of her at the loud ‘ _snap_ ’ in her forearm as either her ulna or radius fit back together.

Beel still holds her hand through the worst of it.

When the worst of it has subsided and she starts to gain some feeling back in her fingers, she tries to breach the topic with him again. “Beel, it wasn’t your fault.”

“You did it for me,” he replies.

“That doesn’t make what happened with Belphie your fault,” she says. When he doesn’t meet her eyes, preferring to focus on the joint of her wrist, she speaks again. “Beel, I’m not mad or upset with you.” 

Purple eyes finally meet hers. “Do you know how we’re connected? Belphie and I, I mean.” 

“Yeah, I know about your twin connection.”

“I’ve never been cut off from him before,” Beel states. “It was weird, not knowing what he felt for the first time in...well, in forever really. But then I could feel his happiness, his absolute elation over something. I didn’t know. I was happy that he was so happy. And then…” he cuts off, swallows. “And then I saw it was what he did to you that was the source of the feeling.”

It’s his guilt on two fronts, she knows. First for not knowing that Belphegor was only a staircase away and under the same roof as him. Second for what his twin did and how, even momentarily, it made him feel.

“That’s not something to beat yourself up for, Beel.” she says. “It’s not your fault about not knowing about the attic, and there was no way for you to know.”

“We’re twins,” he says. “I should’ve known.” 

“Lucifer was very thorough in his enchantment on the attic. There really wasn’t a way for you to know, Beel. You can’t be mad at yourself for something that far out of your control.” She tells him.

Beel humms, filling the empty lull in their conversation. Satisfied with the bulk of the healing done in her arm, he releases his gentle hold on her. His hand dropping away from her after guiding it to her lap as though he is afraid of somehow breaking her.

With both hands in her lap, she continues. “And I do get to thank you, Beel.” 

“You shouldn’t,” he says.

“I am,” she insists, her good hand coming up to cup his cheek. “Thank you for saving me.”

Purple eyes meet hers once more, but she can see that the worry is no longer so prominent in his gaze. His hand comes to wrap around hers on his face, his thumb brushing against her knuckles.

It’s a tender moment before the doors of the student council room burst open. Mammon rushing into the room and screaming, “Where is she? What happened?” Upon seeing them both, he is by the side of her chair in an instant. At the sight of the first aid kit he asks, “What’d you do to my human?” His eyes scanning her for injury.

“Beel was just helping me with a potion,” she says. She’s about to explain further when the rest of her pacts come rushing into the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week has been a bit busy with tropical storm Eta prep, so sorry for the slightly shorter chapter. Storm is mostly past now though and I'm fine.
> 
> This chapter I'm giving Beel some much needed love. Poor guy's been side lined a bit. Not that he can help being caught up with Belphie with each timeline.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the continued interest and support! I hope to see you next update too!


	16. Chapter 16

One by one they enter the student council room after Mammon arrives: First Satan, then Asmo, and finally Levi. It takes time to assure them she's fine. It is a familiar kind of fretting, one that she knows how to navigate well.

When she finally gets them to believe that she is, in fact, alright, she knows that she’s late for her next class. Not that she particularly cares about her own class, but she knows that Lucifer won’t be as understanding as to why the five of his brothers are late. They have an image to uphold after all.

They agree to escort her out to her class. Walking out of the room though, she catches Belphegor leaning against the hall near the door. She only catches the briefest glimpse from him, before he pushes himself upright off the wall and turns his back to her. 

Had he felt her call through the pact too? Was it his choice to answer it? She wonders, knowing her pact with him is still weak and not reinforced. She watches him walk away from her and she has to wonder why it is he came at all.

* * *

She takes a seat on the stool in front of Asmo’s vanity. As he runs his fingers through her hair, she finds herself leaning back into him. What he says is idle gossip, but she finds it soothing. A familiar kind of comfort settling over her as she enjoys his company.

She closes her eyes contentedly for only a moment. When she opens her eyes, she expects the reflection in the mirror to be what it was when she closed them: her and Asmo sitting in his room. The Asmo she knows - the Asmo she expects to see - keeps his bangs long, but she knows that the rest of his champagne-colored locks are short. Only a moment before he had been wearing his usual white collared jacket with the black scarf loosely draped around his shoulders.

Now though, as she stares at the reflection, he is wearing something akin to Simeon’s usual attire: a black top with the white collar at his neckline. Around his bare shoulders is a radiant white cloak, with golden trim and what looks like diamonds embroidered within. His hair is long, twisting and cascading down past his shoulders and framing his beautiful face. The laurel wreath showing at his temples completes the look. 

She stares, dumbstruck by the sight in the mirror. She jumps particularly hard when Asmo calls her name to get her attention. “Is everything alright?” he asks and she turns around to face him. 

She looks at him, the actual version of him and not the stunning image in the mirror, and sees him as she knows him. Her regular, although just as beautiful, Asmodeus. 

With eyes wide, she turns back to the mirror, but now it shows his reflection as it is meant to be seen. It is her and Asmodeus together in his room, and he is the same in his reflection as he was a second ago when she looked at him. 

“Dearest, are you alright?” Asmo asks. Though his tone is light, she can hear the worry in the undertones of his words. No doubt wondering what has caused the odd way she looked at him. 

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I was off in space for a moment there.” 

Asmo pursed his lips together. “What were you thinking of?”

“Just how stunning you are,” she replies easily. It is a truth, but not the entire truth. Yet as for the rest of it, she doesn’t really know how to put words to whatever that just was. 

She isn’t even entirely sure of what she saw. Had it even been real?

The wings in Beel’s reflection hadn’t been, she saw both at the same time as he bent over Lucifer’s chair to retrieve the first aid kit.

* * *

She dies three days later.

She blinks up at the underside of the stairs again and screams. All of her anger, grief, and hurt tearing free from her lungs. Her frustrated hands push at her eyes and her fingers grip at her hair.

She’s halfway out from under the stars when she sees Satan skidding into the hallway. No doubt coming to find the source of the screaming. He stops, dead in his tracks, at the sight of her. She knows he’s probably the only one who could leave the scene unfolding in the entranceway: Mammon currently has his hands full with her other dying self, Lucifer has his plate full of Belphegor and her dying, Beel is seeing his twin for the first time in almost six months and it’s his twin who’s killed her. She figures that Asmo and Levi are probably too stunned to go running to find out who’s screaming under their roof.

“But I just -” Satan says, watching her approach. “You were just... how?” His eyes narrow at her, trying to puzzle out whatever it is he’s seeing. The reasoning for which she knows is lost on him.

She slips her arm into his, linking them together by the elbows. “Barbatos should be here in about five minutes to explain this clusterfuck again.” she states calmly.

So, she finds herself sitting through the conversation in the common room once again. This time she chooses to sit between Satan and Mammon once more, denying Belphegor and Asmo their moment of fawning over her and the right to fill her teacup. This time she holds the hot cup of tea, letting it grow cold, as the scene plays out like she knows it will. One way or another, it always does: the truth about Lilith, her connection being a descendant of Lilith, and finally the added issue of the shades. However, he makes no mention of the shadowy beings being her. 

When Barbatos gives her that polite smile and turns the conversation over to her questions, she can tell that he’s pleased that this hasn’t turned into an argument like the last timeline. Swallowing down her frustration, she asks, “Why can't I go further back than this moment?”

“At this point it would do more harm than good, I’m afraid.” he answers.

She hides her displeasure at his answer with a sip of now lukewarm tea. “Because my soul can’t exist in two places at once within the same timespace?” She asks, trying to pry a better answer from him.

“That’s correct.” he states. 

She almost wants to laugh at herself; why would she expect a better answer. It’s not like he’s given her much to go on over so many timelines. The issue with her soul was an answer she had to get from Simeon afterall. 

“So I’m supposed to keep warping time, like you told me not to,” she states, waiting for him to correct her. She’s hoping he will correct her.

“Temporarily, yes you are. Once we have found a stable way to convince the whole of timespace that your untimely death is not an inevitable crossing point for Belphegor to be released from the attic, then the loops will no longer be necessary.”

“So I’m just supposed to keep dying until I somehow find or live out a set of actions that convinces all of timespace that I don’t need to die today?” 

“Unfortunately, yes.” Lord Diavolo states, crossing his arms as he looks at her. 

When she sits there silent for too long, Mammon gently says, “Are you okay?”

She shakes her head. A part of her wants to laugh, but another part wants to cry. Though she’s given into the second part before. “No,” she says. “But crying about it for however long this timeline lasts isn’t going to solve anything.”

“I apologize that this has become a difficult ordeal for you,” Lord Diavolo says. She wants to believe him, accept his apology or say that his apology isn’t necessary. But she can’t help but feel that he still knows more than he’s letting on. 

He must. Otherwise, why would he let Barbatos continue to maintain this loop? Why else would he need this failsafe?

Instead she shrugs, remaining silent in her seat. What else is there for her to say? Last time she asked about Lilith, it started everything off on the wrong foot with Belphegor. As satisfying as one argument was, she’s not looking to repeat it unnecessarily.

“It might be better if you don’t approach each of these timelines as temporary,” Barbatos offers.

It’s probably the most helpful suggestion he’s given her, she knows. But she finds that thinking about Belphegor in the last timeline has given her a different conundrum. 

So far Belphegor has been the most inconsistent. It is an absolute gamble on how he will treat her with each timeline. Is there remorse or does he hold onto his hatred? Does he resent her and the pact, or does he try to get to know her to understand why he would take such an action?

Where everyone else continues on as she knows them, the reintroduction of Belphegor in each timeline continues to go differently. 

So she turns back to Barbatos. “Considering past versions of this conversation, does Belphie see the shades because he’s the one who keeps killing me at the beginning of this timeline?” she asks.

“That’s my theory, yes,” Barbatos says. Well, it’s a better answer than whatever deflection she was expecting.

Perhaps her solution does lie in the hands of the one person she is at the absolute whim of.

It’s not exactly a comforting thought.

* * *

She survives the first week of this timeline. She survives a week of RAD and awkward meals with Belphie trying to reconnect with his family. It gives her time to think, to digest what she’s learned over the various timelines. 

It still feels like she’s missing something.

She’s sitting in Levi’s tub sideways with her legs dangling off the side. The lip of it is under her knees and just starting to cut off her circulation. He’s sitting in his gaming chair next to her, focused on the DevilKart game they’re playing. She knows he already has her beat as he starts the final lap and she’s not even halfway through her second. 

As Levi crosses the finish line, winning as she knew he would, he throws his hands up in celebration. “Think you’re ready for the Hellfire Cup?” he asks. 

“Yeah, give me a minute though,” she says as she sits up to take her hoodie off. Levi’s room is usually cool from all of the water tanks; however, the computers and gaming systems are currently throwing a lot of heat in the room. With the door closed she realizes just how little circulation his room receives. 

She giggles at the blush coloring Leviathan’s cheeks as he quickly looks away from her as the hoodie comes over her chest. “Don’t just start taking your clothes off!” 

Popping her head out of it, she settles back against the tub. “I have a shirt on underneath!” she replies, pointing to the tanktop she’s in. She’s almost tempted to throw the hoodie at Levi playfully, but instead opts to put it under her knees. Buffering the pressure of the tub’s lip on her circulation. 

Levi looks back at her, but whatever playful retort he was going to say dies on his lips as he sees her shoulder. “Where in the nine did you get those?” he asks, his tone so unusually serious it startles her for a second. 

“What?” she asks, looking where he’s pointing. She catches sight of the scars on her shoulder and blinks at them. “Uh, it’s from that scaled demon.” she says.

“What scaled demon?” Leviathan asks.

“The one Mammon saved me from.”

Her answer does not calm him. “You got hurt and Mammon didn’t tell us? You didn’t tell us - me about it!” 

As his voice rises the problem suddenly clicks for her. It was during that attack, the first time she ever saw the shades, and so many timelines ago now. 

“Levi, calm down,” she starts but Levi is beginning to glow with a dangerous aura of blue. “It was several timelines ago!” 

“What?”

“It happened in a different timeline,” she repeats. The aura around him begins to fizzle out, no longer illuminating the room. He reaches a hand out to touch, his fingers ghosting along the scar the scaled demon left behind. It is the same shoulder where his orange mark sits in her skin, the demon’s claws missing it’s placement by mere centimeters.

Though he is considerably calmer, his brow remains furrowed. “If it happened in a different timeline, then why do you still have it?” Levi asks.

She blinks at him, gobsmacked by the sudden realization. “What?”

“I mean, if Barbatos is pulling you into this timeline every time you die like a failsafe and negating the other timelines to never happening, then why do you still have a scar from one of them?” 

“Why wouldn’t I if I’m crossing over from other timelines though?” she asks. 

Levi considers his answer from a moment, pulling his hand back from her so that they’re no longer touching. “But you keep dying in those timelines, right?” he answers with a question.

“Yes.” 

“So, if your dying triggers you waking up under the stairs again, wouldn’t he keep bringing a dead version or dying version of you here instead?” He says.

“How else would it work then?” she asks, considering what he’s saying.

“Shouldn’t it just be your consciousness and memories crossing over? If it’s your physical body, then you’d have more injuries from the other times you’ve died, right?” Levi speculates.

“I…” she says, drifting off unsure of what she wants to say. She remembers the shades in that terrible limbo; how each of them reflected a different death.

“You said he’s pulling you from one timeline to the next, but wouldn’t it make more sense if he’s rewinding it to the failsafe for you.” Levi suggests.

“Hold on,” she says, trying to think. “I still have the necklace and the scars. Everything that happened in those timelines mattered, they happened. If it’s just a rewind, then it really doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Necklace? What necklace?” Levi asks.

She pulls the little golden heart charm from under her shirt. “The one Asmo gave me.” At the look that flashes across his face, she’s quick to say, “Don’t get jealous. It’s to keep Belphegor out of my dreams in the timelines where he takes a liking to torturing me in my sleep.” 

Levi gapes at her for a moment before he regains himself. "He what? He shouldn't - he," Levi babbles for a moment.  She fishes her D.D.D. out of her pocket and shoots Asmo a quick text.

**Asmobaby (2)**

**17:23**

> **MC** : Do you have a necklace that looks like this?
> 
> **MC** : *Necklace.jpeg*
> 
> **Asmobaby** : Yes!~ 
> 
> **Asmobaby** : I noticed you wearing one like it too!
> 
> **MC** : Do you still have yours?
> 
> **Asmobaby** : I’m pretty sure I do! Are you looking to match?
> 
> **MC** : Can you check to see if you have it?

She waits, watching Asmo’s three little dots blink across the screen. She sits and she waits. “Levi, do you have any spare paper?” she asks, not looking up from her screen. If anyone can help her sort out whatever is going on, she knows it’s him. 

“Yeah,” he says, jumping up from his chair and beginning to dig in the drawer of his desk. 

**Asmobaby (2)**

> **Asmobaby** : I can’t find mine! It looks like I misplaced it! 
> 
> **Asmobaby** : 
> 
> **Asmobaby** : I can stop by Majolish to get another though!
> 
> **MC** : You don’t have to if you don’t want to! Thanks Asmo, this was super helpful!

She wants to throw her phone at the wall. What the hell is going on?

She looks back to Leviathan and begins to sit up out of his tub. “I need your help sorting this mess out,” she says. 

“I’m not sure how helpful I’ll be,” he replies awkwardly. 

“You’re my Lord of Shadows,” she reassures. “Remember how Henry ended up in a weird time loop back in volume 16?” she asks and Levi is quick to nod. Before he can use it as a launching point, she keeps him on task. “He used a stick to draw a diagram in the dirt, so let’s do that with the timelines I’ve been jumping through.”

Leviathan’s eyes light up at the idea. “An actual TSL moment?!” 

So she begins with her original diagram. Maps it out as best she remembers and let’s Levi make pointers. 

Together they talk, write, and debate. They draw up several diagrams, argue the finer points of each, and then start anew with each inconsistency they encounter.

“Maybe we’re looking at it wrong,” Leviathan says on their fifteenth attempt. He takes the pen and begins to draw downward from the three main lines they worked out. “Maybe it’s not so much a new line every single time. What if the fail safes are the loop but also their own timeline?”

She watches him draw a series of new lines from a dot he labels “Point of Fail Safe.” He picks up the purple pen and draws lines from the end of each new line back to the dot.

“If you originally jumped from Timeline 1 to Timeline 2, then the shades appearing in Timeline 2 forced you into Timeline 3; and your death in Timeline 3 is what started your loop, then this might be it.” He explains, showing her the diagram. 

Looking at it, she thinks it’s the best one they’ve come up with.

‘I’m not jumping timelines,’ she thinks, ‘I’m looping through the same one. The differences are because of what I do and my actions influence things going forward.’ 

She still has the pact because it was still technically made. Just out of order as far as this timey-wimey bullshit is concerned. She still has the necklace because she keeps taking it with her with every rewind. 

‘I’m just doing things out of order,’ she realizes. It’s followed by another realization that passes through her mind like a lightning strike. ‘The way Belphegor treats me with each loop is because of how I act.’

Bring up Lilith or the Pact too soon and he remains bitter throughout that loop. Don’t patch up the relationship quickly enough, and he won’t be there to save her.

It’s one hell of a hypothesis.

Realizing that Leviathan is still waiting on her comment of his time theory, she smiles widely at him. “Levi, you’re the greatest!”

She doesn’t laugh at the way his face goes red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! This one is a bit long, but I hope it answers some questions! 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your continued support! I love reading all of your comments!
> 
> * * *
> 
> Similar to what happened in chapter 4, here's the new diagram that MC and Levi made:


	17. Chapter 17

She doesn’t know what to do with the information Levi helped her sort through. To be honest, a part of her was beginning to realize things were not as she figured them to be. Hindsight is a bitch, after all. To jump into a different timeline completely at the moment of her death is a tall order; even if Barbatos chose to see when each of those moments would come. Though if he was watching for that, why let her die in the first place? 

The complex concepts of time and space may be beyond her mortal comprehension, but even she knows when things don’t make sense. 

It would make more sense for Barbatos to have created a loop lasting as long as it’s necessary for them to figure the issue out. Just restart at each death and try again. It’s less involved than watching and waiting for the next shade, random demon, or Belphie to kill her again.

“Something wrong?” Beel asks over a mouthful of something slimy and wiggily. She doesn’t want to consider if it was still alive.

“No,” she lies easily, putting her fork down. “Just not that hungry.”

“But you’ve barely eaten,” Beel says. “You have double labs today, so your lunch isn’t until the afternoon. You should eat.”

“I’m good, Beel. Satan and Lucifer are heading to RAD early today, I think I’ll walk with them this morning,” she says, pushing her leftover breakfast towards Beel and getting up from the table. 

Using the time it takes to walk the short distance to RAD, she thinks and reflects. How had she gotten to this point? 

There was her original timeline, the one before the attic door was opened and she had to traverse the first timeline jump. She lived in that second timeline until the first shade attack, forcing her to jump into the third timeline. Her death in the third timeline triggered the time loop cycle, keeping her in this fourth timeline and resetting it with each of her deaths. 

So what is the solution. Knowing what is happening feels like only half the battle; the other half she isn’t quite sure of. She knows she needs to find a way to stop the shades, appease the dead versions of her that are trying to cling to her soul. 

But what is the answer?

It’s something she contemplates as she sits through the same, repetitive lectures at RAD.

* * *

Three days later she’s faced with doing more than being stuck in her thoughts as the loop resets.

In the hallway outside their bedroom at the House she tries to fight it, despite knowing it is futile. She knows she can’t escape the shades once they appear to claim her life. 

But she’ll be damned yet again if she doesn’t at least try to fight it as it’s terrible shadowy arms snake their way around her ribs. There is a creaking and then a ‘snap’ as her ribs start to cave in, crushing her lungs.

Beel stands absolutely petrified and looks horrified to hear her ribs caving in from the force of something he cannot see. But Belphegor stares at her with a mixture of curiosity and horror, and she knows that he can see the shade. 

“Help!” she calls to him with strangled breath, trying to push the command into her pact. He’s the only other person who can see it. Maybe he’s the only one who can stop it. 

She watches the conflict dance across his face. But as whatever fight within himself is settled, as he moves towards her, there is a deafening _‘snap’_ in her ears and a metallic taste rushing to coat the back of her throat.

It hurts. Her vision fades, going dark from the edges in. She dies again.

Just as quickly she’s opening her eyes once more. She blinks up at the underside of the staircase. With her eyes adjusting to the newest loop, she hisses, “shit.”

She allows herself a moment to lay in that spot under the stairs. She collects herself, thinking about how she’ll proceed this time. What makes the differences between each loop?

She pushes herself up, crawls from under the stairs, and begins the walk through the House to go meet the brothers. She’ll be able to catch the last few seconds of her dying double in Mammon’s arms. Her thoughts stop and sputter; is that what she needs to do? Does she need to make peace with her dying self to stop another shade from forming? 

She might as well try, she figures. The worst that’ll happen is she’ll look like an idiot for a moment or however long this loop lasts.

She comes into the entranceway to see all seven brothers gathered as they usually are. Leviathan is gasping at the sight of her appearing, her double exactly where she knows she will be. Walking past them, it’s her dying form that she moves towards. 

Each step towards the dying version of herself feels forced. Like trying to force two magnets together. Is this the last fragments of her soul repelling her - her soul’s double - before Barbatos collapses them into one? “Please don’t hate me for living,” she says to her dying form as it begins to dissipate in a flurry of bright lights. 

Belphegor, fresh in his anger and hatred in this loop, doesn’t realize who she’s talking to. “It’s fine, I’m about to fix that a second time!” 

No one has a chance to stop him, stunned in their confusion and grief at the events they just watched unfold. Their stunned silence as they watched her try to apologize to a dying version of her. 

She doesn’t have the time to put her hands up, to command him to wait, before his clawed hand is through her chest.

Then she’s blinking back up at the underside of the staircase. She almost laughs at herself. ‘That sure was stupid.’ She crawls back out from under the stairs. 

‘There has to be a formula to this,’ she thinks. There has to be a set of words or actions for her to take to get Belphegor to stand down. She knows not to walk past them and say Barbatos and Lord Diavolo will be here shortly to explain it all. The one time she tried that, Belphie killed her too. So she knows she needs to not ignore them and the scene playing itself out in the entranceway; or to attempt to skip past it. In the times she’s waited for Barbatos and Lord Diavolo to show up before she joined them in the entryway, the relationship remained strained.

‘I need to talk to him,’ she thinks as she walks down the hallway, past all of their bedroom doors. She can hear Mammon’s desperate crying in the distance growing louder as she approaches.

‘But what do I say?’ she wonders. If she talks about a previous timeline, he’ll get mad. If she shows him the pact - or worse, actually use it - then he’ll resent her and find other aggressive means to hurt her. If she says she’s related to Lilith, he won’t believe her. The time she tried to tell him about a fragment of Lilith’s soul attaching itself to her ended in an argument. So what does that leave her with?

She walks the hallway again and sees them at the entranceway; the same as it has been with every other loop. She ignores her dying form, knowing that she’ll be wasting words and time she doesn’t have with Belphegor so angry.

Seeing him, she says, “Wait!” She puts no order into her pact, the one thing she knows will set him off worse than he already is. It may save her for these few minutes, but she knows pulling on the pact will leave him hating her existence more. Even after he finds out about her connection to his sister.

“Belphegor, I need to te-” she starts to say, before he is on her, snarling. His clawed hands ripping through her delicate flesh again.

Blinking back up at the underside of the stairs, she frowns. ‘That wasn’t it.’

Again, and again, and again. Belphegor kills her each time, the span of time between the resets of the loop growing shorter with each of her attempts. 

‘What am I doing wrong?’ she thinks, but refuses to give into that familiar despair she felt several loops ago. She can do this. They can be friends again. She just has to figure out how.

She faces him again. “You need to listen to me!” 

He kills her.

She returns to the entranceway again. “Please listen!” 

He kills her again. She comes back again and again. 

“Your sister, Lilith, didn’t die like you think she did! She had human children that led to me!” 

Again.

“Lucifer gave his oath to Lord Diavolo to have her reincarnated.” 

Again.

“This is getting ridiculous,” she says, as this time she finally jumps out of the way of his incoming claws. After dying to the same attack so many times, she knows to anticipate it. She bites back her laughter at seeing the confusion flicker across Belphegor’s face; bewildered that she actually managed to sidestep him.

It’s only a moment’s hesitation before he recovers and catches up with her. His claws close around her neck, there is a terrifying _‘squelch’_ , and then she is under the staircase again.

‘How in the hells did I do this the first time?’ she wonders, coming out from her spot once more. The first time, the only time she was successful at getting Belphegor to drop his murderous intent towards her, what had happened? She remembers letting the scene play out, letting them spot her as her double disappears from Mammon's arms, and then trying to explain Lucifer’s telling of events involving Lilith. Nothing more or less than that, Barbatos and Lord Diavolo had supplied the rest of the story.

She takes a deep breath as she approaches the entranceway again. She listens to Asmo and Satan say the same things again: Is there nothing they can do as they watch her die? She listens to Belphegor laugh and gloat. 

She steps out into the room when she hears Mammon repeat her name several times. She knows he’s trying to shake her body, trying to keep her for as long as he can. That’s when she makes herself known.

The room erupts into the familiar gasps. No one knows how she’s standing before them as the other body disappears. This time she offers no explanation. 

“Wait,” she says, just a small bit of determination and being careful to not pull on the pact. ‘I cannot command him to listen,’ she knows. ‘I don’t think the loops, the time travel, or my relation to Lilith are up to me to explain.’

Belphegor hesitates long enough for Beel to get a hand on his shoulder. It buys her enough time to tell the story she had heard from Lucifer so many time loops ago. She tells it, nothing more and nothing less. Just the information of Lilith being reborn as a human and living out her life. 

“You’re lying...Lies! All of it, lies! As if you could ever trust the word of a _human_!” Belphegor starts, but she can see his fires burning out.

“It’s the truth,” Lucifer confirms. As Belphie stares at his oldest brother, Lucifer turns to her. “Even so, how is it that you know all of this?”

“I heard it from you, Lucifer.” She says, giving nothing more. 'It's not up to me to explain,' she reminds herself.

Lucifer scowls at her, “You’re lying. I don’t remember _ever_ telling you that story. Tell me the truth, who told you about Lilith?” 

Behind her, she can hear the front doors opening. She sees everyone’s shocked and confused expressions turn as Lord Diavolo and Barbatos finally enter the conversation.

“Oh good, we’re finally getting to this point now?” Barbatos tells her with a knowing twinkle in his eyes. She bites her tongue. If this is the solution, then she needs this to play out the right way and work.

“She’s not lying,” Diavolo tells Lucifer, coming up to her side. “She spoke the truth.” 

‘And here comes the reveal,’ she thinks as Diavolo explains her ancestry. For the first time in so many loops the conversation happens in the entranceway instead of the common room. There is no tea to distract here as their sister’s family tree is revealed to them.

At everyone’s disbelief, Barbatos explains: “Lord Diavolo ordered me to look into the matter, and so I did. It wasn’t easy to trace down Lilith’s lineage, but it’s true.” 

“I don’t believe it,” Belphegor says. His voice sounds small, wavering between his emotions. “It can’t, it can’t, it can’t!” Belphegor shouts, struggling against Beel’s hold. “You’re telling me Lilith wasn’t dead, that she was reborn as a human? And that _this_ human,” his claws pointing at her, “is actually a distant descendant of the human Lilith? Impossible, there’s just no way. I...I refuse to believe that!”

“No matter how far apart we may be, no matter how much time passes, even if someday you’re no longer yourself,” she echos Lucifer’s words from so long ago from Lilith’s memory. “I’ll never forget you. And I’ll always pray that you find happiness...always.” 

“That’s what I said to her,” Lucifer states, voice full of his own awe.

“There’s no way that she would just happen to be chosen for the exchange program! It’s all too perfect!” Belphegor shakes his head.

“Belphie,” Beel says, grip still firm on this twin lest he slip free to attack. 

“Someone must be trying to trick me!” Belphegor states. “Well I don’t buy it! You can’t fool me!” 

“Sorry you had to find out the truth this way,” she says carefully. It makes Belphegor pause and look at her, actually look at her. 

It’s his brother’s that get through to him. The thing she’s missed with each of her attempts up to this point. It’s not about her getting Belphie to believe it or listen to her, she realizes. It was never supposed to be her getting through to him. It’s about getting him and his family to know the truth.

‘It was never about me,’ she realizes. 

“Belphie, you can’t hate humans forever.” Asmodeus says. 

“Lilith was reborn as a human. She always wanted to spend more time in the human world, so I’m sure she lived a happy life.” Beel says to his twin.

“That’s true…” Belphegor says, his eyes looking anywhere other than her. But she sees the way they turned glossy before they welled over with tears. It’s the first time she’s seen him cry since her first time going through these events. Before the shades ever entered the picture.

“You’re supposed to be happy! I mean, who actually cries at a time like this, huh?” Mammon says, crying himself.

“It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been so interested in humans, Lilith would’ve never ended up involved with them. And if I hadn’t invited Lilith down to the human world with me, she never would’ve met that guy!” Belphegor says. “And during the Great Celestial War, I couldn’t protect her either…”

“You’ve got it all wrong. It wasn’t your fault Belphegor. I wish I had told you so sooner,” Lucifer says. 

‘It was never about me,’ she thinks to herself as they start to move the conversation to the common room. ‘It was always about his feelings and the shit he’s held onto for so many millenia.’

This time she takes the tea offered to her and lets both Belphie and Asmo fuss over the right to refill her cup.

This time she listens as the conversation flows smoothly. Barbatos brings up her concerns about warping time. He explains the time loops, the shades, and how she’s done this so many times now.

This time, when Belphegor looks at her disbelievingly and unsure of the news that she’s been jumping hoops through time, she shows him the pact. 

“You could’ve commanded me at any point?” Belphie says, looking at the faint outline of his mark in her skin. It’s glow in response to his touch so dull now, but still present.

“It was never about that,” she tells him.

* * *

Late that night, after the conversation has died down for the day, she washes her face in her bathroom. 

“You’re as bad as Asmo,” Mammon complains from her bed, tapping away at his D.D.D. “You both take forever.”

She’s about to quip back when, in her peripheral vision, she catches a glimpse in the mirror. The sight of Mammon in full plate armor, shiny and radiant, has the remark dying on her lips. Instead she watches, taking in the sight of him in the armor of Michael’s army. The wings protruding out of his lower back are feathered white, and their wingspan is impressive. 

‘Michael’s army?’ she catches herself thinking. How had she known that?

She blinks the image away, turning to see Mammon still on her bed and very much in his regular attire. No celestial armor in place. 

‘When did this start?’ she wonders, looking back at her own reflection and afraid of what she might see. ‘I saw Lilith’s memories sometimes before, but not like this.’

She comes back to her bed and tells Mammon to scoot over. Settling in next to him, she relaxes. Right now it’s about soothing his worries after holding a dying version of her. 

Even with the conversation going as well as it did, she knows that she has a couple of awkward days to work through.

* * *

A week later she finds herself alone with Belphegor sitting in the planetarium. 

“You’re not afraid to be alone with me?” Belphie asks, leaning up from his current napping spot. His hair sticking up on the side where his face was pressed into his pillow.

“I’m not,” she tells him, looking up from her book.

“I killed you though,” he says. 

‘Ah, so this is the conversation we’re having now.’ she thinks. “I know.” 

“Is it because I can see the shades?” Belphie asks. 

She places her bookmark and closes her book. Looking at him she takes in his expression. He’s usually so good at keeping a mask or manipulating his expressions, but right now he looks genuinely curious. What’s running through his head, she wonders.

“Honestly, I’d like to be friends again. I miss that from the other timeline.” She says it carefully.

“Do you honestly think we can be friends again?” Belphie asks. 

“With some work, yeah I do.” she replies.

Belphie shakes his head at her with an exasperated laugh. “You really have celestial heritage. You forgive me for killing you and now you want to be friends.”

Familiar with this direction of conversation from previous loops, she might as well try to figure out how to sort it out. “I have old photos on my phone if you want to see.” 

When he doesn’t say anything, but holds his hand out, she unlocks her D.D.D. and puts it in his awaiting hand. She watches him flip through photos with a weird expression. It must be odd to see pictures of himself in moments he’s never lived. Moments that will probably never happen again either.

He catches her off guard with his next statement. “I noticed that you don’t dream. So you have to have protection from me.”

He watches her as she fishes the little heart shaped necklace out from under her shirt. Honestly has worked well for her so far. “Satan enchanted it for me in another timeline.” 

He stares at her. “And why would he do that?”

“You tortured me in my sleep.” she tells him.

“Sounds like something I’d do,” he admits. Though his tone is so casual, as though he is commenting on the weather. “And still you say you trust me.”

She watches his eyes widen as she takes the necklace off and pockets it. “I do.”

“You shouldn’t. You don’t really know anything about me,” Belphie says. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I know some of it. What you’ve done to me at least. And even without my memories of that other timeline, I know Beel still loves you very much; so you can’t be all bad.” she replies.

Belphie looks at her disbelievingly. “I’ve killed you,” he echoes. “I’ve tortured you in more than one timeline and you’re still willing to try to be my friend.” His hand reaches up for his fingers to trace the mark on her neck. It's such a familiar gesture from so long ago now. 

“I know,” she says, leaning into his touch even as her instincts tell her not to. "I've lost count of how many times you've killed me now. And I forgive you." 

With his hand on her neck his eyes find hers. “Are you sure you trust me?” he asks.

Something in her stomach tightens. “I do,” she answers.

Lightning fast Belphie has a hand over her mouth. The hand around her neck tightens. She can feel his nails elongating into claws. “You really shouldn’t.” he says.

‘Wrong gamble,’ she thinks to herself. She allows herself to go limp in his grasp as she awaits the next impending death. Why fight it when she’ll just end up blinking at the underside of the stairs again in a few minutes. 

But as she waits for him to kill her, his grip loosens around her and his hand pulls away from her mouth. She blinks at him, more than a little surprised that he’s letting her live.

“You’re really not afraid,” Belphegor states. The look in his eyes more than a touch bewildered. 

“I used to share dreams with you,” she says. “Do you want to see what I remember and know about you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, this chapter was a bit of a doozy to write. I struggled with it for awhile. I think trying to figure out how to turn things around with Belphie is really important, and I hope I haven't under sold it here in this chapter. I'm not sure if I'm 100% with it, but I think it's better to get it out there and keep moving forward. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading and for all of the lovely comments! I'll see you all in the next update!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, credit to Tumblr user lilli-chae for isolating all of the Obey Me chat emojis that I've been using in this fic.

**Mammoney: (2)**

**14:22**

> **MC** : I’m taking a nap in the common room. 
> 
> **MC** : Don’t panic if I’m not at dinner.
> 
> **MC** : However, if I’m not up by a reasonable time tomorrow, kick Belphie’s ass for me.

She slips her D.D.D. back into her pocket, leaving it on vibrate instead of on sound. She’s not sure about having it completely silenced. She settles down into the couch cushions, getting comfortable for an afternoon nap. Belphegor is on the couch opposite her. He watches as she takes the heart shaped pendant from her pocket and puts it on the coffee table between them. 

She closes her eyes and finds herself asleep faster than she can recall in recent memory.

It feels weird dreaming for the first time in so long too. Throughout the time loops, sleep has become a necessary evil; a small period of blankness as her body rested. 

Around her now her surroundings warp and twist the way they usually do at Belphie’s influence.

“Alright, let’s take a walk down memory lane.” Belphegor says as he appears beside her.

“Anywhere in particular you’d like to start?” she asks him.

She watches his eyes begin to glow a shade of rich purple. “No place like the beginning,” he says.

Together they relive everything. She shows him her first run through the second timeline, and every snippet of time she spent with that version of him.

Then she shows him the first shade attack. The time he slipped into her dreams there and the second time after. The time he stopped a shade from killing her in her room. And her departure from that timeline. 

_“Use it if you have to. Don’t let me kill you again. No matter how much the other me will hate you for it, I don’t want you dead.”_ That timeline’s Belphie says before she leaves. 

Then she’s in the third timeline and Belphie is trying to kill her in the foyer of Lord Diavolo’s castle. The Belphie beside her in the dream watches as she has to use the pact. 

Together they relive his nightly torture in that timeline. The terrible shadowy hands pulling her into the depths of hell and how he delights in killing her over and over again. The version of him standing beside her at least has the decency to look uncomfortable and, perhaps, guilty.

Then she’s dying again and waking up under the stairs. She shows him every time a shade, another demon, or he kills her: Loop, after loop, after loop. 

She shows him the time in Lilith’s room. The argument that follows in the next subsequent timeline as that version of him doesn’t believe her. The Belphie with her in the dream watches with a confused fascination as she shows him moments of Lilith’s memories bleeding into her life, caught in glimpses and reflections.

She shows him everything.

“How has your psyche remained intact?” he asks, watching the memory of her sidestepping one of his many attacks, only for him to kill her in the next moment.

She laughs at that. “I’m honestly not sure,” she replies. “I don’t feel like I have much of a choice. I can wallow in it like I did once, but it doesn’t end well.” 

* * *

Together they’re laughing in the kitchen; Mammon, Belphie, and her. Belphie is happily sitting on a stool, watching them work and move about the kitchen. 

“We’re not doing hell-sauce noodle cups for dinner,” she says with a finality, pulling something that resembles broccoli out of the human safe drawer in the fridge.

“We haven’t done hell-sauce noodles in forever though,” Mammon counters. Perhaps it has been forever for him, but she’s had them several times in what feels like the past two weeks. Or whatever the hell passes for two weeks worth of her memories now. Her sense of time really is quite scrambled.

She hears Belphegor’s chair scrape across the tile floor first. The sound of his sudden jump to his feet is her only warning. 

She’s barely looked over her shoulder before shadowy hands close over her mouth from behind. The hands brace and she recognizes their placement as intending to snap her neck. The shade's hands muffle her shriek as she immediately grabs for one of the knives on the counter. 

‘Not now,’ she thinks, panicked. Not after everything she did to get Belphie to begin building a relationship with her again.

It turns out she does not need to use the knife. As Belphegor gets his hands around the shade’s neck, he yanks it back. It’s shadowy claws slip down from her chin to her shoulders, then rake across the exposed skin of her arms as he pulls it away. It's arms remain outstretched in her direction as Belphegor creates distances between her and her attacker.

The claws leave angry red lines in her skin, and she can feel that there is a cut on her chin now; but the shade is off of her. Turning around she watches in shock as Belphie, in his demon form, holds the attacking shade in his clawed hand. He’s looking at it with a gobsmacked look, clearly unbelieving that the thing is in his hand.

Then Mammon is beside her. He tries to shield her, acting as another barrier between whatever unseen thing Belphie holds and her. One of his hands hovers by her cheek, near the fresh cut on her chin. Looking up at him, she can see the absolute panic in his lapis eyes.

But she looks past Mammon for a moment to focus on the squirming shade in Belphegor’s grip. 

“Try apologizing to it?” she says, the request sounding strange even to her.

“You want me to do _ what _ ?” Belphie asks.

“Apologize - I don’t know! I’ve never gotten to this set of events before!” she says. He knows she hasn’t. Never before have they halted a shade’s attack. Not since the first time he chased one off from her bedroom in the other timeline.

There is a pause, and she cannot see Belphegor roll his eyes from where Mammon is fussing over her. Belphegor looks at the shade, at its weird shadowy form as it hangs from his grip. It’s elongated and twisting limbs are too exaggerated to be mistaken for human, but it’s size is reminiscent of hers. 

To him it feels eerily similar to dangling her body by her neck in the attic.

He’s seen her memories and watched as she discovered the truth of their being. Experiencing it outside of her dream though, the whole thing feels off to him. He has seen shades before: wispy, mute demons that mostly drift within the bolgia of sorrow. Some even inhabit the swamp under Satan’s lordship. 

But the thing in his hand does not feel like a shade. Though perhaps it is better to give a name to the odd remnant of time trying to kill her than not. 

“I’m sorry I killed you,” Belphegor tells it looking into its strange, impassive white eyes. Immediately the thing in his hand stills, it stops struggling against his hold. Then it is melting in his hand, dripping bits of shadow as its shape collapses and it melds into the shadows on the floor. Then it is gone completely. 

His hand comes back down to his side. When he looks back to her, he finds her staring in shock. “It’s gone,” she says in disbelief.

“Weird,” he grumbles in infernal, before repeating it in English for her. 

Mammon quickly looks between the two of them, his confusion clear on his face. “What in the nine hells just happened?”

“It was a shade,” she explains, saying it even as she still struggles to believe what she just witnessed. “And Belphie stopped it, I think.”

The realization hits as soon as the words leave her lips. There is a heaviness in her chest and she tries to breathe past it. “Holy shit, you stopped it!” she repeats, her voice cracking with sheer emotion. “How many loops has it been and we’ve never stopped one! Every damn time they always reset the timeline.” 

“Do you think they’re gone for good?” Mammon asks, looking between her and his younger brother.

“I don’t know,” she replies. “But they can actually be stopped!” She watches as Belphegor pulls the first-aid kit from the pantry. He places it on the island counter of the kitchen. 

“The memory you showed me had multiple shades,” Belphegor says as he beckons her to sit on the stool. She slides onto it and lets him examine the cut on her chin and the angry red marks on her arms. His tail twitches in agitation at the sight of blood welling up in some spots. “Do you think I’ll have to apologize to all of them?”

“I don’t know,” she says. Mammon is texting furiously on his D.D.D.

“Well, now is as good a time as any to bring it up, but I want to give my pact to you again,” Belphie says casually as he dabs an alcohol wipe over her chin.

“What?” both she and Mammon say in unison.

“I’m convinced that you won’t use it like a leash or make a slave out of me, so I want to reinforce the pact we once had in another timeline.” Belphegor explains. “That’s if you want it again?”

She almost forgets to breathe for a second, the air catching and tightening into a lump in her throat. Finally, finally, _finally_ ; things are finally progressing!

“Yes!” she tells him as soon as she can force the word past that lump of emotion in her throat.

“Then I give you my pact,” Belphegor says, his hand going to the faint outline of his mark on her neck. He begins to speak in infernal and there is a hot sensation that runs up her neck, exactly where his pact sits in her skin. 

For the first time in what feels like years to her, the pact is finally whole once more.

As the sensation fades she blinks once and suddenly she is not looking at Belphie in his blue, cow spot sweater and curling horns. Instead he is in a radiant white cloak that cascades down his shoulders. His top is sheer with a darker blue tinge closer to his waistline. The halo above the crown of his head is nearly blinding with it’s light.

She blinks and the momentary memory is gone. She is looking at the demon Belphegor she knows once more as he continues to clean up the cut on her chin.

* * *

She finds herself knocking on Satan’s door late that night after the excitement has died down. “Do you have a minute to talk?” she asks as he opens the door a crack to see who is disturbing his reading. 

He opens the door wider and invites her in. He gestures to the couch and she takes a seat; curling into the corner of the cushion with her back against the arm of the couch as she hugs her knees.

“What do you want to talk about?” Satan asks after taking the seat at the opposite end of the couch. His eyes showing his curiosity.

“I don’t really know how to bring it up,” she starts and struggles to keep eye contact, “but I’ve been having, well I guess visions?” 

“Visions of what?” 

“Of memories that aren’t mine,” she says and pauses to get her thoughts in order. “I know that they’re Lilith’s. I don’t know how or why they’ve started to happen more frequently, but sometimes I’ll catch your brother’s reflections and I’ll see them the way that she remembers them.”

She watches his eyebrows disappear beneath his bangs.

“What do you mean exactly?” he asks.

“Sometimes if I’m looking in the mirror and Asmo or Mammon walk behind me, I’ll see them as they were in the Celestial Realm. I’ll see Asmo with flowing white robes and radiant wings, or I’ll see Mammon in the set of armor he wore during the war. I once caught a reflection of Beel with his angel wings too.”

“It doesn’t feel bad when it happens, but it does feel weird,” she finally states.

“And this is different from the memory you have of Lucifer making his oath with Lord Diavolo?” Satan asks, his hand coming under his chin in thought.

She nods, “That memory feels like it’s always been there, the way I can recall it. It’s also more movie-like. When I remember it, it’s like I’m watching it happen. Well Lilith was watching, so that makes sense at least. But with the other memories, they’re happening alongside with things that I’m seeing. It’s like the memories are overlapping on top of what I’m seeing in the moment.”

Satan hums and gives himself a minute to put his thoughts in order. “I wonder if it has something to do with your exposure to death through the time loops.” 

“I don’t know,” she replies honestly. “There was a loop where I was killed while talking to her ghost. The memories seem to have become more frequent since that loop, and I haven’t spoken to her again since either.”

Satan nods at the information. She can clearly see the gears turning in his head, trying to figure out the latest puzzle before him.

“In one of the loops it was explained that a fragment of Lilith attached itself to my soul and that's how I opened the attic door. I don’t think I mind having a piece of her hitching a ride with my soul, but I guess what worries me about seeing these memories is that I’m worried about becoming a recycled version of her.”

She watches Satan’s eyes go wide for a moment. “I…,” he starts, struggling with how to word his thoughts for a moment. “I know a thing or two about living in someone else’s shadow. What I know about Lilith is from what I saw through Lucifer’s eyes before I was created. You have some similarities, but you’re also so very different.” 

“When I went through the first loop and learned about being a descendant of hers, I was afraid that Belphie only saw me as a piece of her. In the first timeline it took me a while to realize that it’s not the only way he sees me, and that our friendship was real. It was what we built it up to be.”

“But now,” she bites her lip for a moment. “Now I’m just confused, Satan. She remembers playing hide and seek and the way Belphegor's eyes would sparkle when he talked about the human realm; and I’ve only recently gotten him to reaffirm our pact. I've only just started allowing myself to dream again. I want to be hurt and angry for all the times he’s killed me, in this loop and in others, but I can’t bring myself to be anymore. I want to be friends in the worst way, I want our friendship back and I’ve worked really hard to make it happen this loop; but I’m also realizing that I’m not even sure if those are my feelings or hers.” 

It’s only when Satan hands her a tissue that she realizes that she’s been crying.

“Satan, I saw Belphie as she remembered him as an angel when he reaffirmed our pact. It wasn’t even a reflection. One minute I was looking at him, and the next I was looking at her memory of him.” she says. “What if this keeps getting worse?”

Satan studies her for a long minute. “I understand that it can feel disorienting having to sift through memories and feelings and untangle hers from yours. You’re still your own person,” he affirms. 

When she nods her head, he continues. “When it gets hard to tell the difference between what your feelings are and what hers are, I want you to think about things in your life that you’ve accomplished. Preferably outside of the Devildom, before you ever met us. Let the things that are yours be grounding, no ghost or anyone else can ever take those memories from you.”

"That makes sense,” she replies. “Like how I know that my feelings for you are one hundred percent mine. She never met you." 

Satan’s hand comes up to rest on his chest at that. The smile that graces his lips is genuine. 

* * *

**The Demon Brothers (7)**

**23:13**

> **Mammoney** : Alright, my human is asleep.
> 
> **AsmoBaby** : You mean _our_ human, dear brother. 
> 
> **Stn** : Let’s not start this argument again. 
> 
> **Beelzeburger** : Agreed. So what are we doing about the shades?
> 
> **L3VI** : Clearly we have Belphie apologize to them.
> 
> **Belphie** : But there were dozens of them! 
> 
> **L3VI** : Think of it like a collectable quest! All the best games fluff up their achievements with them!
> 
> **Belphie** : 
> 
> **Belphie** : Ignoring that, we don’t even know if that’s the actual solution yet. 
> 
> **Stn** : True. It might only be a temporary fix right now.
> 
> **Stn** : We need to come up with a better solution for keeping her protected from them.
> 
> **Mammoney** : As much as I hate to admit it, I didn’t even see the slippery fuck attack her.
> 
> **Mammoney** : Barbatos and her weren’t wrong about Belphie being the only one of us to see them.
> 
> **Mammoney** : 
> 
> **Belphie** : So I’ll take over as her protector.
> 
> **Mammoney** : Absolutely not!
> 
> **Mammoney** : I’m her guardian demon and her first! It’s my duty to protect her!
> 
> **Lucifer** : Mammon, we don’t have time to argue about who has the right to guard her from the shades. You literally just admitted that you couldn’t see them.
> 
> **AsmoBaby** : Lucifer has a point there. It still seems unfair that Belphie has to stay be her side all the time now. 
> 
> **AsmoBaby** : I know she could have way more fun with me with that kind of one-on-one time.
> 
> **Mammoney** : Focus Asmo!
> 
> **Beelzeburger** : We can always move her into our room. We have the extra futon.
> 
> **Mammoney** : Absolutely not!
> 
> **Mammoney** : 
> 
> **Belphie** : Not a bad idea.
> 
> **Mammoney** : She’s not moving into your room!
> 
> **Stn** : It would offer her extra protection. Belphie, you said that she was attacked in her sleep in another timeline right?
> 
> **Belphie** : She was.
> 
> **Lucifer** : Then it’s settled. She’ll sleep in the twin’s room until this shade business is settled.
> 
> **Mammoney** : What?!
> 
> **L3VI** : Vetoed again Mammon! LOL! 
> 
> _... **Mammoney** is typing _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a great, healthy, and safe one!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and thoughts are always encouraged and greatly appreciated! ♥


	19. Chapter 19

Her fingers are working to tie her tie into a half-Windsor knot when Mammon barged into the twin’s room. “You’re late,” he says by way of greeting.

“Good morning to you too,” she replies, not taking her eyes off the mirror as she works to complete her task. 

Mammon strode up behind her. “You’re too dang slow at that. If you take any longer, Beel will eat everything at the table and we’ll have to grab food in the cafeteria. Here, let The Great Mammon give ya a hand with your tie.”

As he gently guided her by the shoulders and began to adjust her tie, she smirked at him. “You still can’t do your own, Mammon.” she teased. 

“Can’t you just bask in the honor of having me do your tie?” he replied. She tried not to grin wider at the faint blush rising to color his cheeks. Instead her hands came up to adjust his tie while he did hers. This had become their little morning routine over the past two weeks.

Ever since her temporary move into the twin’s room at least. Well, everyone said it was temporary but no one knew for certain. Two weeks in and the shades were still a problem they had yet to solve.

She hoped the issue would be solved soon though. As comfortable as their couch was, she did miss having her own bed and her own space.

“Who is on breakfast duty today anyway?” she asks, smoothing out Mammon’s collar. 

“Asmodeus,” Mammon replies. His tongue pokes past his teeth in concentration as he corrects the shape of the knot. 

“So at least it’ll be edible.” She says, then quickly adds, “Unlike whatever the hell Levi tried to serve the other day.” 

It earned her a loud laugh from Mammon. “Your guess is as good as mine. I tuned him out when he started to recite the title of the anime.”

“Can you keep it down?” Belphegor’s muffled voice came from the nest atop his bed. She knew Belphie was under the cluster of blankets and pillows somewhere, but where exactly and how he settled there each night was a mystery to her. 

“You should be up!” Mammon replies, shouting perhaps just to tease.

“Last I checked this is my room.” Belphie said, his head emerging from the nest. His hair is sticking out in all directions in a rather comical way. “Get out, Mammon.” 

“You ready?” Mammon asks, ignoring Belphegor and quickly removing his hands from her tie.

“Yep, let’s grab breakfast before Beel polishes it all off.” She replies, grabbing her RAD jacket off the back of the couch she’s been sleeping on and her book satchel. “See you at the table,” she says to Belphie behind her.

Leaving the room together, they both came to the dining room to see that they weren’t the last ones at the table. Lucifer and Leviathan were still absent. Of course, Belphie hadn’t followed them either.

“Good morning,” she greeted as she took her seat. A chorus of greetings met her as she began to gather her plate. Asmo had prepared some shadow hog bacon and pancakes this morning.

She is halfway through her plate when Lucifer finally joins them. The bags under his eyes told her that he had pulled another all nighter. “I thought you said you were going to go to sleep last night,” she says to him, remembering his words when she dropped off tea the previous night.

She catches his smirk before it disappears behind the lip of his coffee mug. “I did.”

It’s not long after that Leviathan arrives in the dining room and demands his portion from Beel. 

She still hasn’t come up with a good alternative for Levi demanding Beel vomit a portion of breakfast each morning.

* * *

Belphegor’s tail is wrapped around her waist as they walk across campus. His hands are in his pockets as they both listen to Beelzebub talk about the day’s fangol practice. 

The conversation is light until something grabs her ankle. The force pulls, tripping her mid-stride, and the only reason she doesn’t hit the ground is because of Belphie’s tail. Belphie rounds on the offending shade. 

This isn’t unusual. In the last two weeks the shades have become slightly more aggressive, more brazen in their attacks. As if they are desperate, but for what no one can figure out.

It doesn’t help that Belphie’s apologies stopped working a few days ago. The shades don’t disappear or fade away from existence any more. The remaining ones seem a lot more determined and bound in their desires than those who were placated with apologies. 

No, what’s suddenly unusual is the several pairs of white eyes that face them. There’s three of them. She hasn’t seen multiple attack before. Not since that time in Lilith’s room.

“Beel,” Belphie says, his tail pushing her closer to his brother. “Take her and run.”

Beel doesn’t need to be told twice. She blinks and finds herself in Beel’s arms as he runs towards the house. There’s the jostling of Beel kicking off the ground, and the slight fall before his wings catch them. When had he transformed?

“Beel, wait,” she shouts up at him, “we have to go back! We can’t leave him alone! What if they hurt him!” 

“He’ll be alright, I’m more concerned with them hurting you!” Beel replied over the buzz of his wings and the wind. 

“If I’m hurt or killed, this all just resets! It’s not the same for Belphie!” she argues. 

Beelzebub’s hands tighten around her. “No.” 

“But -” 

“No,” Beel insists. “Not again. Not if we can help it.”

In what feels like no time at all, they’re back at the house. “Do you see any?” Beel asks, hovering above the heavy double doors.

“No,” she replies. 

Beel doesn’t even put her down. She watches his fingers on the hand by her shoulder flex. His fingertips glow a faint red, she watches the same glow cover the door knob, and the door magically opens for them. He flys them into the foyer and then hovers there, in the open space just out of reach of the stairwell. She hears the door slam shut behind them. 

“Cover your ears,” Beel tells her. She does, her fingers putting pressure over her ear canals. It doesn’t help much as Beel shouts. “Anyone home?”

Her ears pop a bit as she pulls her hands away. Somewhere deeper in the house she hears a door shut. Both Beelzebub and her wait for a response, when suddenly Beel plummets. 

There is a crash and her whole world turns upside-down. Beel lets out a sharp exhale, like all the air is knocked out of his lungs. Looking up from where she landed on the floor, she stares wide-eyed as a shadowy limb wraps itself around Beel’s torso; effectively pinning Beel’s arms to his side. 

The room explodes in a cacophony of buzzing as locusts and flies flood the area. The swarm called forth out of the ether. 

“Run,” Beel commands. She watches in horror as the insects swarm him, forming a tight sphere around him. He may not be able to see the shades like Belphie and her, but he can feel it around him. He can attempt to keep it contained, perhaps.

She staggers to her feet and takes off up the stairs. As quickly as she can. Why now? Why so many shades?

On the second floor she races down the hall, skidding to a halt in front of a familiar spot on the wall. 

“Lilith,” she breathes, the air tight in her chest. She tries to rush through the door before it finishes revealing itself to her. Once past the crack in the door, she slams it shut behind her. She knows the bright, false light of the room means nothing to the shades. It will not keep it away. 

No, there was another reason she came back to this room.

“How do I stop this?!” she calls out into the room. She waits for a few heartbeats of silence. “Answer me! How do I stop this! What do I need to do!” 

When still more silence answers her, she shouts, “Lilith, answer me please!” 

The light in the room doesn’t change. There is no gust of air this time. She’s not coming, the realization hits her. 

And she’s alone in a room with shades chasing her.

“Shit,” she says, eyes darting around the room. She had expected - hoped - that Lilith would appear as she did the last time. The last time she came to this room some truth was revealed to her. It turns out it was too much for her to hope for more aid here. 

The sound of the doorknob turning has her whipping around to face it. If a shade is going to kill her again, she’ll at least see it coming. 

Damnit, she’d made it so far this cycle too.

Where she expects to see shadowy limbs and piercing white eyes, instead she sees ebony feathers and a familiar black and red coat. Lucifer. She breathes a sigh of relief.

“What are you doing here?” Lucifer asks. His full demon form on display. She watches as the purple aura drifting off of him like rolling fog begins to dissipate. He reigns his power in. 

“Shades attacked,” she begins, but Lucifer interrupts.

“I’m aware. However, why did you run here instead of straight to my office like we discussed!” His voice raises just slightly in frustration. 

“I know, I was stupid. I -” 

He holds his hand up to silence her once more. “Enough of that. I’m aware you’ve dealt with repeating events. Why did you choose to come here?” 

“Last time I did, Lilith helped. I hoped her ghost might be able to again. This time she didn’t though.” She replied quickly. 

In all fairness, Lucifer took the information well. She had mentioned the few otherworldly interactions she’d had with his sister before. 

She watches as Lucifer walks the length of the room, tossing the dust covering off of a chair before taking a seat. He does not reassume his human glamour. “I suggest you make yourself comfortable,” he says, watching her as she stands in the middle of the room. “We’ll be staying here until Belphegor gives us the all-clear.”

She nods. She walks over to the chair opposite him and removes the covering. Then she sits and the moment of silence begins to stretch between them. When was the last time, in any cycle really, that she’d had a decent conversation with Lucifer? This time around the last one had been a family meeting, establishing rules for keeping her safe from the shades.

“I can hear the gears turning. What’s on your mind?” Lucifer asks. She looks back at him and holds her breath. 

It isn’t a perfect overlap of memory. He still has his horns and clothing associated with his demonic form. But his wings are suddenly different in her eyes. Six white-feathered wings are draped over the side of the chair’s arms and resting against its back. 

“I’m not sure what I’m missing,” she says, realizing that he’s expecting an answer. 

“In regards to?” 

“Everything,” she answers. “I’ve had the most progress this cycle so far, but I’m still no closer to figuring out how to stop the shades from chasing me to the ends of the Devildom.” She blinks a few times. The sight of his wings hasn’t changed back to what she knows is really there yet.

Lucifer purses his lips. “It is quite the enigma.” She knows he hates admitting to gaps in his knowledge.

Who knows how long this cycle will remain. “You used to have six wings?” 

The speed of which his expression changes is almost as if she struck him. He recovers from her rapid change in conversation quickly though. “Who told you?”

“No one did, it’s kind of complicated.” she replies. 

“You know I’m not a fan of secrets being kept under my roof.” 

There’s the pot calling the kettle black, but she stops herself from saying that. “I don’t know if it’s because of how many times I’ve died, but it’s getting worse,” she says. “I see things sometimes. I think they’re memories, her memories.” 

“Explain,” he says, but there is no command or urgency in his tone. Maybe a genuine curiosity. 

“Remember how I told you about Lilith’s last moments? How I knew exactly what you said to her before she was taken away to be reborn as a human?” she asks. He nods, pursing his lips but he doesn’t speak. So she continues, “I sometimes get other flashes of memory like that. I’ll see Asmodeus as the Jewel of the Heavens. I’ll catch a glimpse of Mammon in Celestial armor. I saw Beel with angel wings once. In this room, I see you with six white wings instead of four. 

“At first, it was just fragments of things. I used to have nightmares of Lilith’s fall at the end of the Great Celestial War, even before the time loop. Then I died and experienced her last moments, your deal with Lord Diavolo and you saying good-bye to her. That was it, the dreams stopped. But now,” she pauses to breathe. Like verbal vomit it just spills out of her. “Now it just happens, even though I’m awake, and I can’t control it. It started off as times when I looked in a mirror or caught someone’s reflection the right way, but now sometimes it just overlaps with what I’m looking at. I know it’s her memory of how she saw you all that I’m looking at.” 

She stares at the red in his eyes as he looks at her. Like he’s searching for something. When he doesn’t speak right away, she continues. “It’s not scary, but it feels...wrong. Not in a bad or painful way, it just feels, ummm, displaced? Like something inside of me keeps trying to be seen and known.” she struggles to explain.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” Lucifer finally speaks. The glow of red in his eyes seems softer. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. I do not know how you inherited her memories, or how they’re appearing to you now. I am sorry to hear that they are discomforting to you.” 

“I’m just not sure what any of it has to do with figuring out how to stabilize time and stop the shades from killing me.” she says.

“I will admit that Barbatos’ explanation doesn’t feel sufficient. In all of spacetime, I doubt he’s never dealt with something like this. I am not sure what answer he wants you to come to through the maintaining of this loop.” 

She nods in agreement. The loop is like a holding pattern. She’s caught constantly cycling through events, unable to land and settle into them. What more can she do to change it? 

“I’m not sure how many more times I can manage to start from the beginning again,” she admits. “I finally have a method nailed down for getting through to Belphie, but it’s tedious. I’m tired of reliving the same weeks over and over again.” 

When she looks up and meets his eyes again, she finds that she can’t read his expression. 

“Make a pact with me,” Lucifer says.

“What?”

“I said, ‘make a pact with me,’” he repeats. “It’ll be like Belphegor’s, and weaken in your next loop. However, I hope it will save you some trouble of having to explain things so often again.” 

She blinks, her mind racing. “But you don’t do pacts?” 

His lips twitch upward, the barest fraction of a smile. “And neither does Mammon, usually. Exceptions can always be made, and in none of your previous cycles through the loop have you forged a pact with me. Perhaps that is what is missing.” 

It sounds too good to be true. She doubts that a pact with him will solve all her problems, but she cannot deny that she is drawn to the offer. That little feeling in her chest urging her on, to tie herself further to Lilith’s family.

“Just be aware, I will not belong to you. You will belong to me.” Lucifer says with a smile. Any sane person might pause at that. But she’s been beyond that point for awhile now.

“I accept your offer.” 

His smile wides, to the point where she can see just the tips of his fangs. “Then it is done.” He offers his hand out to her. Long familiar with how this goes now, she places her own atop his. She listens as he says something in Infernal and feels the familiar sensation of heat across her skin. 

His mark takes its place, setting into the skin of her wrist. It’s glow is royal blue, and dulls as his touch leaves her. “Even if this cycle ends abruptly, may it be useful to you going forward.” 

“Thank you,” she says, her fingertips tracing the outline of her newest mark.

It’s then that their D.D.Ds begin to ding.

* * *

Belphegor is draped across her shoulders, his weight pressing into her back. Together they sit on his bed, watching as Beel paces back and forth along the length of their room.

“I don’t like it.” Beel repeated for the dozenth time.

“I know,” Belphie sighs.

“We got lucky today,” Beel continues. “You should’ve gone straight to Lucifer’s study.”

It’s her turn to say, “I know.” 

“The shades could’ve gotten you. They could’ve killed you before any of us found you. I wouldn’t have thought to check Lilith’s room.”

“I’m sorry.”

Beel hums, but does not slow down in his pacing. “They just disappeared again.” 

“They usually do,” Belphie huffed. Behind her she heard his tail swish back and forth on the mattress. 

“I don’t like it. I don’t trust it.” Beel stated. The shades slipping away as soon as her pact with Lucifer was made was suspicious. It felt like the first time that shade had disappeared after Belphie’s apology. They’d all already dealt with false hope this cycle. They had reason to be suspicious of easy answers.

“I don’t know what more you could do,” Belphie says. “What else do you need to do to satisfy whatever it is that Time has decreed.”

How many times had Barbatos explained that there were certain major intersections in timespace? Events that needed to come to pass. What else could she do to set time on a different course.

She blinks. 'Unless…'

“Maybe it’s not about finishing this cycle.” she completed the thought aloud. The twins paused to look at her, Beel coming to a full stop in order to stare. 

“What?” Belphie asked.

“What if I needed his pact in order to go further back to fix something else?” she asked.

Belphie shook his head. “I’m not following.”

“Remember our first dream walk? How I knocked on the door to Lilith’s door coming out of the room and it looked like I went further back?” 

“Yeah, still not sure how you did that.”

“What if I do it again, intentionally this time?” she asked. Lucifer had a point earlier: Barbatos’ explanation doesn’t feel sufficient. There’s no clear solution or way forward in the loop. 

Beel hummed his displeasure at the idea. 

“Before you disagree, what if I try to go back to the day you killed me and stopped you before you did?” she asked Belphie. “It would stop the loop from ever happening.”

Maybe trying to live out each loop is the wrong answer. What if she’s supposed to use the time in the loop to go back? What were his rules for time travel again?

“You’d cause a paradox.” Belphie replied.

“That’s what Barbatos is for. He can sort that mess out, but it could break the loop!” she said, getting excited by the idea. Which door would she knock on? Lilith’s seemed pointless. The attic door, perhaps?

“If you go back, Belphie will hate you again,” Beel says warily. 

“If you do go back, use the pact.” Belphie says, an echo of his own words. But they both know that’s not the solution to make their relationship go forward. 

Would showing Lucifer’s pact solve that? She’s doubtful, at the time he still hates Lucifer for confining him to the attic. For appearing to choose Diavolo over his family. No, that probably isn’t the answer either.

What if she went back to the original timeline? The one with Belphie waiting in the castle dungeon. Could she use Mammon’s door to get back to that timeline?

Mammon’s door. The realization hits her.

“I know what I need to do!” She says, jumping up and running to the door. She takes off running down the hall to Mammon’s room.

She hopes this works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so terribly sorry for the delay on this chapter. I lost my job back in December before the holidays and life has just been kicking me while I'm down ever since. I ended up having to rewrite this chapter twice. And though I'm still not 100% satisfied with it, I want to get it out there so that I can continue on with the story. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone for the amazing comments and interest in this story. It's really gotten me through and helped me to keep going. 
> 
> Comments and thoughts are always appreciated.


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